Lankford Love

Lilleigh's first birthday fiesta!

2012-02-08T05:14:00.002-06:00

Saturday was Lilleigh's first birthday party! Fiesta, to be exact. And a fiesta it was!

Here are some party pics!

You can read all about the party over at Thankfully Thrifty!

ONE YEAR!

2012-02-07T21:17:00.001-06:00

Lil is 12 months! {That means an end to these sticker photos - Yea!} At one year, Lilleigh is...

Walking while holding onto furniture.
Pulling up on Mom and Dad's legs and hanging on tight!
Nursing four times a day (in 24 hours), and Mom isn't sure about the weaning thing. We'll see.
Loves to swing! She actually gets antsy every time she sees a swing in sight.
Loves wagon rides.
Drinks well from a sippy (though she has for months) and constantly takes Mom's drink with a straw. And she likes milk. (We've been giving her milk for months.)
Loves to eat most foods, but especially loves tangerines and bananas.
Loves story time.
Getting in her first year molars, I'm pretty sure.

I can hardly believe my little one is a big toddler now! Each age is just so much fun! I feel continually blessed.

A little bit of chaos

2012-02-01T22:09:00.000-06:00

Life is just busy and chaotic right now! Not bad. Just chaotic.

Yesterday Lilleigh and I were just off. Bad moods all around. A viscous cycle. Cranky, cranky. And to top it off she cried for 30 minutes when I was putting her to bed. It was sad - for her and mommy. At the end of the night I was ready for a looong break! Being a stay at home mom isn't easy! Not that working is. Just saying staying home isn't the walk in the park I envisioned as a child. Ha! What was I thinking? I'm encouraged by the blog post my friend Samantha wrote in response to my Facebook status about my day.

Today Lil was her sweet self. She even took a long afternoon nap to make up for the day before. I couldn't help but thank God for new beginnings. A new day, after a day like yesterday, just seemed so beautiful. And it was.

But I have to tell you. Not that what came next made the day less of a blessing from the Lord. Or made my heart any less thankful for new beginnings. But well, life continued on... Like I said, Lil took a great nap this afternoon. As I heard her starting to stir, I also heard chickens squawking outside. I finished what I was doing (a minute tops) and ran out the door with Sammy to see what was going on. A hawk was kneeling over Blondie, our new hen! I was horrified. I started screaming and running towards, frantically looking to see what I could throw at it! (SO thankful Lilleigh was not with me!) The hawk flew away and Blondie twitched. Oh it was terrible. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. I can't get that vision out of my head. Oh the horror. I'm traumatized. I don't ever want those sweet chickens to be in such danger again. I shooed Henrietta and Clara Belle into the coop. (Why they weren't there in the first place is beyond me - maybe the squawking was their attempt to scare off the hawk?) Then I ran around searching for Sir. The poor little guy was hiding in the corner of the fence under some shrubs. I scooped him up and put him in the coop. Then I placed an Amazon box and a chair over Blondie, who was now dead, to wait for Brendon to get home. Oh it was the saddest thing... I suppose it's the circle of life. Only natural. But still terrifying.

I wish I had some awesome life lesson to tie these two days up with a bow. I don't. Just thought I'd share about the "excitement" (that's so the wrong word) around here. A little chaos on top of an already crazy week. I have a to-do list a mile long before Lil's birthday party on Saturday! Her first birthday! So exciting! Expect lots of photos to come.

Cousins Weekend

2012-02-01T21:43:00.000-06:00

What a fun weekend we had - full of out of town guests! Brendon's cousin Amy and her husband Tim were in town for a wedding, so they stayed with us Friday night and came to lunch with us on Sunday. And since they were in town, Ryan, Tarryn, and Connor come up also. It was so fun to have the cousins (Lilleigh and Connor -- and Amy!) together!

Snack time of oranges at Lilleigh's (actually Mommy's and before that Mimi's) kiddie table

Bath time fun!

Brendon is a the chicken master.

We went on a long walk on Saturday. And we came back with heavy trash finds. No, we didn't go in search on heavy trash, but when you find a kids easel and a set of drawers in great condition, you can't just not pick them up!
I've already spray painted (with chalkboard paint) the white board side of the easel. And the drawers are now in our front closet - so much more organized now! Thanks, heavy trash!
PS Can you spy Lilleigh?


The cousins!

Apparently Amy is like Santa. No bueno, according to Lil.

The girls and babies!

It was a fun weekend! Thanks everyone for coming up to visit! We loved it!!

Lots to say!

2012-01-24T21:52:00.002-06:00

Lots of "little" updates, so here we go... pure randomness!

1. Lilleigh said "baby" today! The story: I was getting her up from nap and singing my silly made up songs that I sing to her - something about "Lilleigh Baby" - and when I laid her down to change her diaper, she said "baby." Multiple times. She kept repeating it because I was getting so excited, and clearly she understood that she was saying a real word. So proud of my "baby" girl!

This isn't a photo from that moment, just a photo from today. Isn't she so stinkin' cute? And look at that fun cloth diaper! We were given it for a product review for Thankfully Thrifty!

2. We got two new chickens this weekend. If you remember, we started out with four and then found out two were roosters, so for a long while we've had two. They've given us about a dozen eggs a week, which is pretty awesome, except now I want eggs like daily, plus baking. So a dozen isn't cutting it. Ha!

Anyway, long story short, one of these new chickens might be a rooster. Why do we think this? Well, we notice features that our previous roosters had... such as bright yellow feet, fluffy tail, odd neck movements, strutting... we'll see. Farmers typically say it's a very small chance you'll get a rooster - like 5% - though there's always a chance since it's so hard to tell non-adult hens from roosters. Apparently though when we buy chickens, it's more like 50/50. Their names? Blondie and Sir. Since we aren't 100% sure Sir is in fact a sir, we are waiting for the cock-a-doodling to start happening.

On the chicken note, Brendon added some awesome tree limbs to the coop to give chickens more of an inside lair. The two newbies are spending lots of time there to avoid being bullied by Henrietta and Clara Bell. Oh, girls!

3. We had our first trip to the library! Yea! We got some great books and a couple of baby signing DVD's. Hoping for Lil to pick up signing! We've worked on two signs ("more" and "all done") over the past few months, and she does "all done" like it's going out of style. It helps that it's similar to the wave, which we know she loves. So I'm hoping to integrate other signs! We'll see!

4. Yes, Lil and I do have matching (-ish) pajamas!

5. In an effort to keep buying local organic produce and meats, I'm thinking about becoming a coordinator of a local co-op. In exchange for coordinating, you get free food - a certain percentage of what people in your area buy! This would require getting a deep freeze and getting lots of neighbors to buy from them. But I'm not expecting that to be hard to do. We'll see. Fingers crossed that this great (in my head, anyway) idea works out!

6. Loving all of this rain and thunder tonight! Sleep tight! But keep Brendon in your prayers today - he has a day trip to Nashville. The rain is wonderful staying-all-nice-and-cozy-inside weather, not so great travel weather.

Lessons Learned from Lilleigh

2012-01-15T21:15:00.000-06:00

It's hard to believe that it's almost been a year since we brought sweet Lilleigh home from the hospital. This past year has gone quickly! There have been some sleepless nights (though thankfully not many!), some tears, some frustrations, and a lot of joy, a lot of laugh, and a lot of learning! Being a mom has taught me a lot. I've done a couple of "mommy lessons" posts, and I guess this is similar, only this isn't so much what I've learned about being a mom, but what I have learned from being a mom.

Over the first year, sweet Lilleigh has taught me a lot!

I've had to confront, head-on, my own selfishness - ouch. Many times my plans for the day are thwarted because Lilleigh doesn't want to nap or feels sick or is extra clingy and teething {or insert baby issue}... how hard is it to drop everything and hang out with her? Apparently, for me, very. I'm working on that.
I've had to prioritize my time, figuring out the things that needed to be done and those that don't, figuring out what could be done with Lilleigh and what needed to wait for nap time. I've had to figure out how much we can realistically fit in a day, keeping in mind feedings and naps and playtime.
Recently, Lilleigh learned to wave, and once she learned how, she didn't stop. She waves at almost everyone she sees. Recently my heart has been more burdened for those who don't know the gospel - not just those I love but those I encounter daily in the grocery store or Starbucks. And tonight as I watched Lilleigh waving so boldly at three young men sitting near us at dinner and making friends with them, it occurred to me - Shouldn't we all be so friendly? And if we were, how much easier would it be to share the good news with perfect strangers? Something to think about.
And speaking of waving, her sweet lively spirit brings me such joy. Her life is so simple and yet so happy. She's not worried about the future or about anything. Sure, it's easy to be carefree when you have no responsibility and no knowledge of the world around you, but still. How beautiful to approach life, as a child.
And this last one I am putting as a single bullet point, but it could encompass a whole list of it's own bullet points. And that is this - I desire so badly for Brendon and me to be able to create a home for our family that focuses on the Lord and teaches His Word. In order to do this, I need to die to myself daily. I need to be in God's Word and have His Word written on my heart. (This requires Scripture memory, something I've always considered myself to be terrible at.) I need to put myself in a position to be getting fed by other Godly women. And spending time with Him daily. Though I knew these things before, now it's so apparent how necessary they are. Soon Lilleigh's words and actions will be a direct result of what she sees and hears. Oh how I hope she hears more of Him than me.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but just a few things I've been thinking about! Funny how such a little person can teach us so much about life and faith.

11 Months!

2012-01-09T13:16:00.003-06:00

Dear Lilleigh,

You are 11 months old! I can hardly believe almost a year has past! My the fun that we have these days!

At 11 months...

You can finally wear a real bow in your hair! It doesn't hold a whole lot, but it stays! ...Until you pull it out.
You are cruising! You crawl around and pull up on everything. You've taken a few baby steps while holding onto things. You won't sit still for diaper changes, though thankfully you started being still again for feedings. Phew.
We have a blue pushy buggy car that a friend lent us. You LOVE it!
You also love Sammy dog and love grabbing her fur. We try to correct you and show you how to pet her gently. Still just last week you yanked on her whiskers. Sammy just let out a yelp. Poor dog! She spends most of her days hiding back on our bed now. You've definitely broken her in though - she loves you.
You love to read. You pull out books often and flip through them on your own. I hope your love of reading is something that stays with you throughout life.
You also love to "woof" like a dog. You've been doing this for awhile, but still noteworthy. So stinkin cute!
You watch Mommy blow on your food when it's hot, and now you've started to do it also.
Mommy has been trying to teach you the signs for "more" and "all done." You picked up on the "all done" and do it for everything! You wave your hand in the air (more of twist - hence the "all done") for "come here," "I want [that]," "all done," "more," etc. Everything. Luckily Mommy understands you. The other day you said "all done." Not kidding. Both Mom and Dad heard you. Twice. Two different meal times.
Did I mention last month how you wave constantly? I mean, constantly. At everyone and everything. You could be Miss America someday with that wave. Though hopefully not. Let's avoid beauty pageants. We'll just put you in a parade instead.
We also nicknamed you "Beansies." It came from "Jelly Bean." The name was just shortened. And well, that name really needs to go. But it's a habit.

I have so much fun with you each day! Each day is a new adventure and is so fun. I love you sweet pea!

Love,
Mommy

*Last week it was unseasonably warm here. Like in the 70's. In January. Crazy, I know! So I'm not a nut for putting my child in a onesie in January. It really was that warm!

A Christmas Recap

2012-01-03T20:53:00.000-06:00

This update is long overdue. More than anything else I just wanted to share some photos with you!

For Christmas we stayed in Dallas, and RMom came to spend Christmas with us. We went to the Christmas Eve service and ate a Christmas Eve dinner at Macaroni Grill.

The next morning Brendon made cinnamon rolls, and I made breakfast casserole - the traditional Christmas morning breakfast growing up. That tradition must continue!

Don't these look amazing? They taste like Cinnabon too.

We opened gifts, and Lilleigh napped. My favorite gift was the mug that Lilleigh and Brendon made me! And the shelves Brendon got me for my craft closet! Who knew I had so much craft stuff?!

Lilleigh really enjoyed the wrapping paper! I was a bad mommy and barely took any photos Christmas day. (I was busy relaxing.) But since Christmas isn't about gifts, it's prob okay.

Lilleigh got excited when I opened the mug she made me and wanted to drink out of it.

Later that night we wrote in our Lankford Family Book of Remembrances for the first time. It's a special tradition that we were excited to start!

Christmas was a low-key day, which is exactly what we wanted! I've never gotten to have Christmas just at home, so even though we missed our Houston fam, I was thrilled to not be on the go all day long!

On the 26th we headed to Houston to see lots of fam! We had many Christmas celebrations and lots of great time with family. Lilleigh got to meet my dad's parents, who she had yet to meet. And we also squeezed in a birthday celebration for Brendon's sister Meredith - 21!!

Riding on her new rocking horse from GG and Bill

Pappy showed Lilleigh how to open gifts.


So I actually meant to include a different (cuter!) photo, but this photo captures it all - Lil got to play with her Titi and climb all over her while 3-year-old Aunt Morgan stood by not sure what to think about it all (j-e-a-l-o-u-s...). And then there's "little dog" aka Daisy, who Lilleigh LOVES.

The photo I meant to upload

Lilleigh met Grandma Kay!

Lilleigh also met Grandpa Bill!


Lilleigh with GG and Bill!


Meredith is 21!!!

Now that I'm at the end, I can see that the second half of our Houston trip is seriously lacking in photos! Sorry, Papa Larry and Grammy! We'll work on that next time!!

I hope you all had a merry Christmas!!

This and That

2011-12-22T22:08:00.002-06:00

ONE.

Lilleigh got a wagon for Christmas from her Grammy. Obviously a wagon would be kinda annoying to transport from Houston to Dallas, so Grammy had it shipped to us. And she even came up to set it up!

Riding inside was fun. ...Don't mind the photo quality. Bad lighting, iPhone photo, flash, etc.

TWO.

Lilleigh the artist.

This is why we'll never have cable. I'm convinced that Amanda (my artist friend) and Tess (who's just creative in her own way) are uniquely gifted because the lack of cable in their homes forced them to entertain themselves and use the gifts God gave them! :) Oh and did I mention that Amanda has two sisters who are also super artistic? Totally convinced that we need craft projects galore at our house over the next 18 years!

Daddy and Lilleigh's project. I'm pretty sure it's a gift for me. :)

THREE.
Costco is just more fun with friends. How awesome that their carts fit TWO babies!

Maddie and Lilleigh ...Maddie's mom, Katy, has become my Costco buddy!

Speaking of Costco, I bought this rug there. I'm in love with it. $12. Pretty sweet deal, huh?

FOUR.
My friend Katy gave me this super cute owl rice pack for Christmas. She made it. Yep, she's crafty. That's probably why we get along so well. (Well, not the only reason!) Funny thing - see that rice pack on the right? I made that. And I had planned to give it to Katy for Christmas. Great minds think alike. Except when it comes to design... apparently my creative juices weren't flowing quite as quickly or something. Glad I decided to get her something else!!!
Brendon and I laughed so hard when we compared the two side by side. Prior to seeing her owl, I was actually quite proud of myself for my creation. She showed me up. That's what friends are for!

FIVE.

I had a mommy ornament exchange the other night with my moms group! Can I just say it's been such a BLESSING to walk the first year of motherhood with these women! I am so thankful that the Lord led me to Square One, the new mom's ministry at church, where I met these women.

SIX.

Yesterday Brendon took off work, and we took Lilleigh to a Christmas party at a local nursing home. Oh my heart just ached for those people there. Though they were delighted to see Lilleigh, the sadness and bitterness in the place just made me sad for them. Still it was great to bring a little life and cheer to such a drab place. I hope we can continue to do this in future years and even throughout the year.

What to do about Christmas?

2011-12-20T21:25:00.000-06:00

Over the past few weeks, even months, Brendon and I have been thinking a lot about the subject of Christmas. Of course, we always knew Christmas should be about Jesus. And now that we have Lilleigh we really want to downplay the Americanization of Christmas and place Jesus center stage, where He belongs. After all, the holiday is His.

I don't really think our desire for this is different from that of other believing parents. (And by "believing," I'm not referring to Santa!) But I know that despite similar desires, what we do with the holiday may look different. In this post, I'm sharing with you some of our thoughts and the parts of Christmas we're wrestling with. This is in not a judgment on you, so please don't take it that way. This is our Christmas dilemma...

Gifts.

I'm not sure what to do here. America prioritizes gift giving. And while I looove gifts (They're my love language!), I want to be careful about what we teach our children. With so many (wonderful, I should add) grandparents, our children are bound to get lots of Christmas gifts already. So Brendon and I will have to watch to make sure this is not overdone - by us or them.

And in the category of gifting is giving. Our society sometimes spins it like this - Christmas should be about giving to those in need and loving others well. While I think these are both noble things, Christmas is about Christ. Caring for those in need is something a follower of Christ should do, but let's not forget that Christmas is not about volunteering and giving, in and of themselves. It's about Jesus. Without Him, those other things don't have a place. If we don't love Him, we can't really love others.

So on the gift front, one thought is to make birthdays a big deal (in the gift sense) and downplay gifts at Christmas. Still do gifts but just smaller things.

And as for giving, we should give and give generously. But we must keep Christ as the center, otherwise our giving is meaningless.

Santa.

I'm not sure where Santa fits in. I am hearing gasps on the other side of the screen. If Christmas is all about Jesus, why do we make it about Santa? And not just about a jolly fat man in a red suit... but a lie. I know many of you would probably say that it's a children's myth and is fun. And I'm there with you. You see I feel very torn on this subject because I did love believing in Santa, but I remember being taken back when I found out my parents had been lying to me for so many years. I don't want to lie to my child.

And not just that, but there's also the argument that Donald Miller makes in Blue Like Jazz - if you tell your kids there's a Santa and then they come to find out Santa isn't real, what are they going to do with God? This is Brendon's thought. Now I realize that both Brendon and I (and many of you) believed in Santa and now believe in God, so I'm going to ask you not to argue with this thought but just to consider it.

Now that I've said I'm not sure I'm comfortable with Santa, you're probably wondering what we'll do with him. Do we just tell our kids he's not real and have them ruin it for everyone else? This is the last thing I'd want to do. At the moment, I see two options:

Allow Santa to be a part of Christmas, but don't ever play him up or make him something to be "believed" in. Even if society is playing it up, if the parents don't, then the kids won't. You can still stand in line to get photos with Santa, hang a stocking with his face on it, and even have Santa wrapping paper. He will have a place at Christmas, in the same way reindeer and Christmas trees do. He'll be fun. But he won't be someone to be believed in. And I wouldn't worry about our kids ruining it for your kids either. We recognize that other families may do things differently and can explain to our children that some kids think differently about Santa and it's up to their parents to tell them about him. (Plus if a kid doesn't have an "aha" moment of Santa not being real, I don't see where they are going to get the motivation to say something to your child anyway.)
Or the other option I see at the moment is from the post Santa Strategically by Jen Wilkin. Jen and her husband let their kids bring up Santa on their own. They never actually brought him up. And when he was finally brought up, they allowed it. But never did they tell their kids he was real or make up stories about his sleigh. Instead from the very beginning they said, “There’s a secret to Santa. If you think you have figured out the secret of Santa, come ask Mom and Dad.” And from there when questions of Santa came up, they'd say, "That's part of the secret of Santa." This option allows for the fun of believing in Santa without ever lying to your kids. But it does allow them to believe which could take the focus off Christ, depending on how you played it. I have a feeling Brendon may not go for this one.

Basically we are still figuring out where we stand on this, but we probably won't be encouraging belief in Santa. This does mean that we will not be doing Elf on a Shelf! No matter how fun that may be. Haha.

Oh and no matter what - no gifts "from Santa." That just seems silly. As Brendon put it, "Why would I put Santa's name on a good present? I want credit for that. If anything, his name can go on a bad gift, like socks or something." No that's not prideful... it's Santa, people.

Traditions.

This is our first year to be at home for Christmas, which means it's also our first year to begin our own traditions. So we've been thinking long and hard about what traditions to implement. Our measuring stick for choosing traditions is Christ. Do our traditions glorify Him?

The Book of Remembrances. Brendon wants to start a book of remembrances. Each year on Christmas we'll sit down as a family and write down all of the ways God has been faithful throughout the year. We are commanded to proclaim God's faithfulness to future generations - how can we do this if don't keep a written record of His faithfulness? Plus, when we are in the midst of trials, it's easy to forget what all He has done for us. I love the idea of being able to look back at His faithfulness in our lives so clearly.

Once kids can write, they can write as well - or draw. This is a way for the whole family to be involved. And a written testimony of God's faithfulness, as recorded in Malachi 3:16 with the book of remembrances and Joshua 4 with the rocks in the Jordan.

Shepherd's pouches. We can't really do this until Lilleigh is old enough to understand it. But the idea is that you hang a very simple looking "shepherd's pouch" where the stockings would be. Each child has their own pouch. And whenever mom or dad see the kids do something nice for someone else during the month, they put a little money in their pouch. Then on Christmas Eve, the kids get to count up their money and go through the Gospel for Asia (Or Compassion, etc) Christmas gift catalog to pick out a gift for another child or family. On Christmas morning, the pouches are replaced with stockings. But I think this tradition captures giving well. Learn more here.

Advent calendar. I started our own with Advent ornaments this year with the names of Jesus on them. I'm envisioning this being a fun activity each evening after dinner when we have kids old enough to get into it. This is a simple way to keep the season's focus on Christ.

For a list of other Christ-centered traditions, check out the list from Keeper of the Home.

How do you keep Christmas all about Christ in your home?

GriefShare Recap

2011-12-16T08:03:00.000-06:00

I wanted to take a post to write about GriefShare now that I've finished it the first time. {Though I say first time, it'll probably be my last too, as getting out just before Lilleigh's bedtime is taxing on us, but they invite everyone to come back for as many sessions as necessary.}

In case you haven't gotten it by now -- GriefShare is AMAZING. Our last meeting was Tuesday night, so I've taken the last few days to process my experience in the program. Basically, like anything else, you get as much out of GriefShare as you put in it. I did the homework religiously. {I didn't do the journaling at the end though because I didn't see that section until the second to last week - oops. I'll go back to that!} I attended every group meeting possible, and I tried my very hardest to be on time for the video in the beginning. {Hard thing to do around bedtime!}

If you've ever been through GriefShare, you know the videos are cheesy. They were filmed in the early 90's, I'm sure. Southern accents. So much awesomeness in style... big hair, huge cow necks, baggy sweaters, big glasses. Oh wait some of these styles are back in! :) Still these outdated videos were filled with nuggets of wisdom. There are times I found myself nodding my head, Yes, Yes, they get it. I feel that too. And other times where I though, Ooh I have to write that down!

After our video each week, a leader would share their story of loss. Though hearing so many stories is sad, how comforting it is to know we're not alone! Hearing those stories filled me with so much hope and encouragement. Others have walked this path before me and are here to walk beside me.

The second hour is small group time. We were broken up into groups by gender. Other than that, there were a multitude of losses and ages in each group. There wasn't a specific agenda each week. We could talk about the homework, video, grieving in general, pertinent events from the week, anything goes. I was always careful not to dominate conversation {like anyone is in such a setting} so it struck me as odd that I'd leave there feeling so relieved and insightful, as if I had just left a session with my counselor where I talked the entire time. Funny thing.

I think this is what really struck me the most during these last three months. And I've come to realize that grieving with others, in community is a very healing thing. Grief is grief. Whether I was talking to someone who lost a sister, a mom, a dad, etc, I felt very connected to them because as it turns out, grief is a universal concept. Who knew! Since I went to school for counseling, I feel funny saying this next part - Counseling has been great and has been a life line for me this past year and a half, {And no, I don't plan to stop anytime soon}, but there is power in community. Jesus was constantly surrounded by His disciples. And though sometimes He would go off alone, many times He'd go off with His small inner circle of just three disciples. He lived life with others. And look at the trinity - three in one. Relational. Communal. We were made to live life with others. And this includes the trials. I don't think we were ever meant to go through the trials of this life alone. No one can lose Austen for me. Even my siblings and parents who lost him - he meant something different to each of us. In the same way, I can't go through cancer for my sweet friend. But I can be intentional about letting others share my burden and letting them into my grief, just as my dear friend can let us walk this trying road with her.

GriefShare was an easy way to do grieve communally. Everyone there had experienced loss. They all got it. And they all realized that it's not something you "get over." Truthfully, I think this was something I just realized. I didn't know what it'd look like years from now, as more time passes from his death. But seeing others grieve well has shown me that healing looks like pain in the midst of joy. It's not pushing back the pain or ignoring. That pain will always be very real, though it will certainly lessen. Instead, it's embracing pain in the midst of joy. Feeling both together is a beautiful thing.

Christmas Parties!

2011-12-15T21:29:00.000-06:00

We've been Christmas partying it up! Okay not really. But we have been to a couple.

Last Saturday morning we went to a Christmas brunch for young families at church. There was, of course, food, hence the "brunch." Then we sang songs with the kids. So sweet and fun!

Brief interruption: Apparently I never mentioned that we found a new church home. Several of you have reminded me. Sorry about that. We are now at Watermark. I'll hopefully share more about that later. You can always remind me. Back to this post...

Daddy daughter photo op! Left to right: Mike and Maddie, Matt and McKinley, Brendon and Lilleigh

Lilleigh with her friends Maddie and McKinley

Notice how they are all in matching Christmas tree shirts! Katy and I made them!

Then yesterday Katy hosted a fun mommy-baby party. We saw Santa and got photo, ate yummy food, crafted some cute little reindeer, swapped cookies, and played! It was a fun {and chaotic!} time had by all!

Sadly, Santa did not make this photo.

Trying to get Lil to touch his beard.

Wiping tears because Santa is scary.

And an extra large group photo, so you can see everyone!

Crying, crying, crying...

2011-12-12T19:47:00.000-06:00

It's been one of those days. Crying. Non-stop. Or so it seems. This afternoon Lilleigh didn't want to nap. So she cried, as usual, when I put her down. It's not that it wasn't tired. She was. In fact she was a bit late for nap (which has never been an issue). I think she sometimes gets worked up because she knows fun toys are in the living room, and she's missing out. Typical. Anyway, it began with that. Then she slept for maybe 15 minutes and woke up crying again. I let her play for a bit, but she was clingy, whiney, and rubbing her eyes. I tried to lay her down again. Still no rest. And so our afternoon went.

And then tonight... again, not so smooth. Typically she gets a bath and changed into her PJs. Then I nurse her for 20 minutes, followed by story time. Song. Prayer. Bed. But like I said, tonight wasn't as smooth. And it hasn't been for the last few nights. She hasn't nursed longer than 10 minutes. Tonight she nursed 10, which was a victory. Past nights it's been 5, maybe. I try and try to get her to eat. The room is dark. Just us. But no. So we continue on with the routine, and after we leave her in her room to sleep, she starts wailing until finally I come in and nurse her for the remaining time.

I've heard that often for non-bottle-fed babies, weaning happens easier because they can't carry Mom around with them, and they want to be mobile. I'm wondering if that's what's happening... It's frustrating. I wish I could get her to nurse the full 20 all up front. It's also sad because as much as I'd love to be able to leave her for more than a few hours {did I say that??}, I know I'll miss nursing her. Those precious quiet moments at the end of our day can somehow redeem a day like today that seems full of whining and crying.

Have any of you experienced this? Advice?

2011-12-10T20:09:00.000-06:00

Now that Lilleigh is on the movie, silence is not a good thing. This afternoon Lilleigh was playing in the living room while I was fixing lunch in the kitchen. Then I realized I didn't hear anything... So I peeked into the living room to make sure she hadn't crawled off to some other part of the house. This is what I saw.

Do you see Lilleigh? I had to do a double take at first.

She's nestled between Sammy and the couch, cuddling with sweet Sammy dog!

What a sweet baby girl for wanting to cuddle with her puppy! And what a sweet dog for letting Lilleigh cuddle and crawl all over her - even when Momma isn't watching!

10 Months!

2011-12-08T21:02:00.000-06:00

Oh my goodness, I think I fall more in love with this little pumpkin every day! Is she not just the cutest thing you've ever seen? Many of my friends see new babies and swoon, remembering the days their babes were that little. I can't relate. Really. Of course, when Lilleigh was a new baby, I adored her. But I've really enjoyed her more and more each day. New baby snuggles are great, but nothing beats the mimicking of Mommy's faces, the crawling after Sammy, and laughter.

So here are some photos of Lilleigh at 10 months. I know these aren't awesome. My apologies. I think I'm over this monthly sticker thing, but I have to finish out the year... And not to mention that getting this child to sit still or pose is near impossible!

She learned to wave. I tried to get an action shot.

Crawling after the lens cap.

Sweet thang! Trying to put on her headband! Making Momma proud!

Lilleigh at 10 months...

CRAWLING! And PULLING UP! Yikes! Time to find a new home for lots of things around this house! I feel like our place is in utter chaos as I try to move things off the coffee table, fire place ledge, etc. Meanwhile, toys are being pulled out left and right. Oh to be mobile! {I wouldn't have it any other way though!}
Lil has decided she loves fruit! She's been a great eater overall, but recently she's decided fruit is a delicious treat. So it may have to become dessert.
Speaking of eating, she still refuses to let me feed her - unless I'm giving her a sweet treat, like say apple sauce! Otherwise, she will find a way to feed herself! This does make finding nutritious food a challenge. I won't say difficult. But we have a lot of fruit cut up, shredded chicken, beans, rice, cooked carrots {yuck!}, and peas.
Beginning stages of weaning. I am trying to go down to 3 feedings - well, nursings - a day. {Keep in mind that she still wakes up for an early morning feed between 4 and 6ish, so I'm not counting that.} I didn't set out to do this, but since she's more active and loving solids, she just hasn't been as antsy for it. So one day I just let her dictate it, and three feedings is what happened. So I'm trying to go with it! Though I don't plan to completely wean for a looong time {We'll prob do one feeding at night for another 6 months at least} I have been a little worried about what weaning down to that one feeding would look like, given that she never took a bottle. But this gives me hope.
She tries to whistle, like Mommy and Daddy. That's always been Sammy's call to "come" - the whistle. And when Lil hears us doing it, she starts to blow and sometimes even spit. I can't wait till she figures it out!

I'm sure there's so much more, but I'm exhausted. So off to bed!

The Mat Room

2011-12-06T13:16:00.002-06:00

Our play group has started to meet in the mat room at Watermark twice a month. The mat room is essentially a big room with a large gymnastics mat floor and tons of fun mat wedges, tubes, blocks etc. So fun for mobile babies and toddlers! And now that Lilleigh is army scooting and crawling, she can enjoy it! Yes, CRAWLING, like all fours! That started TODAY, just in time for her 10 month birthday! Here are some photos from today of Lilleigh and our neighbor Jensen.

That's Sylvia (Jensen's mommy and our awesome next door neighbor!) in the photo. She'd kill me if she knew I posted that photo :) but I think it gives you a good idea of what the mat room is!

Never Once... Did We Ever Walk Alone

2011-12-05T17:06:00.001-06:00

My friend Destiny, whom I've recently come to know, shared her story at GriefShare the other night. It wasn't the first time I'd heard her story. But that didn't keep the tears from coming. Destiny lost her brother Derek seven years ago. Coming from a rough upbringing, she describes him as her life witness. I love this label. Though I thankfully had a wonderful upbringing, I relate to this term. The phrase I've so often used is "my other half." I realize this usually describes a spouse, but growing up I think it describes siblings close in age. Austen was there for most everything important in my life, and I, in his. Sometimes when I'm frustrated or laughing at the situation I find myself in, I just want to call him because I know he's the only one that would truly get it. Though I have lots of younger siblings, the age gap is so great that sometimes it seems like we were raised in two totally different families, and to an extent, we have.

The beautiful thing about Destiny's story is that after years of stuffing her grief and making terrible decisions as a result, she confronted her grief face to face in GriefShare. And she came to realize that though Derek may have been her "life witness," she's come to realize that it was never just she and Derek. God was there too. Destiny's story is beautiful. And the only reason for this is because she allowed God to work in her life and breathe hope into what seemed like a hopeless situation.

Destiny followed her testimony with this beautiful song by Matt Redman, called Never Once. They played this song at church on Sunday, and it brought tears to my eyes.

Christmas Tree Photos and Her Mommy-Made Dress

2011-12-02T22:39:00.000-06:00

She loves that red salt and pepper shaker ornament. And she really loves the Christmas tree!

See how I made this dress here.

Visiting Santa

2011-11-27T17:43:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did. It was busy, as always! And as always, I forgot to take pics. Oops! Here is this awesome photo of my siblings and me that I found while visiting though.


Three wild Indians and a turkey! Circa 2002?

Just before we left though, SMom and I took Morgan and Lilleigh to see Santa. We got to Mem City Mall at 8:55 AM, just 5 minutes before Santa opened for photos. We were the first - and only - people there! At first Santa's helpers were having some camera issues, so we had lots of time with Santa. Lil checked him out from afar, and he played peek-a-boo with her. Morgan got to sit on his lap and look at his reindeer book with him. I got tons of photos of Morgan on my iPhone, but by the time it was Lil's turn, they made me put my phone up. Darn! Despite the way it looks, she actually did like Santa... she loved the feel of his red velvet coat. And all was well... until Mom walked away... then it was NOT okay. And of course, the photogs were sloooow in photo taking, so the unhappy photo is the only souveneir we have. Still a classic!

Photos to document the occasion...

Public Service Announcement: Comments!

2011-11-21T20:03:00.000-06:00

I love your comments! And I love getting emails with your comments too! To make it easier, I changed up the comment form to "Disqus" (Thanks to my friend, Katie) to make it easier to comment. Now it's super easy to comment even if you don't have an account with Blogger! Anyone can comment!

Go ahead, try to comment on this post.

Ooooh Ornaments!

2011-11-19T13:31:00.000-06:00

There's some motivation to crawl!

For the record, those are salt and pepper shakers that look like ornaments. Brendon's aunt gave them to us a few years ago. They are not breakable.

Lilleigh at 9 Months!

2011-11-17T13:21:00.000-06:00

This photos just give you a glimpse as to how active Lilleigh is!

Lilleigh at nine months...

LOVES solids and eating them all by herself. She even refuses to let Momma feed her, though she did let me give her pureed strawberries earlier. Those are just tasty though!
And on the solid front, she's pretty much eaten everything not processed so far - so egg yolk, grains, veggies, fruits, and meat. We'll probably still continue to avoid processed foods as much as possible, but then again Mom and Dad would like to do that too.
Peek-a-boo is her favorite game!
ALMOST crawling. (Remember that army crawl happened after her 9-month-birthday.)
Wearing size 9 and 12 month clothing... the 12 month clothing is really just for her big bottom cloth diapers. :)
Still some sleep disruptions, though it is getting much better. Last night she woke up at 3 and refused to go back to sleep until I fed her at 3:30, but over the weekend, she slept straight through the night both nights. (Though our friends' kids that were staying with us woke up both nights...)
Her personality is coming out more. I'd say she's very happy and pretty content and laid back, meaning not super strong-willed, aside from her unwillingness to take a bottle.
Napping is a gift of hers. She usually naps 9-11 AM and 1-3 PM, give or take. Yea, Lil!
Still props her head up on her bumper pad to watch out the door to see if Mom or Dad will come rescue her.
Lil was sick a lot this month! Tummy bug, cold, pink eye, cough, some weird fever/rash virus... but thankfully she's well and thriving now!

What I love about Lil this month...

Her laugh when I tickle her.
Her semi-toothy grin... five teeth have broken through, which equates to two almost-full teeth and three nubs.
The way she loves playing the piano with Daddy.
That she knows Momma means me!
Her efficient nursing! This has been for a couple months now, but after those first several months of looong feedings, I'm still thankful for how efficient she now is.
Her peek-a-boos.
How she scoots backwards and in circles... almost crawling! She even backs herself into corners.
Her napping expertise.
That she is finally getting big enough and her hair full/long enough for me to put a headband on her head without her looking silly. Yea hair accessories!

And a Mom update... I wanted to lose the rest of my baby weight by my birthday, which pretty much coincided with Lil's 9-month-birthday. "Nine months on, nine months off." Well that proved true for me! YEA! Last time I weighed myself, I had two pounds left... not sure that even counts. As far as I'm concerned the baby weight is gone!! I had been worried I wouldn't get the weight off before having baby #2, in which case it may never come off, but thankfully I did! Phew!

Army Crawl!

2011-11-13T20:00:00.000-06:00

For the last two months I've been thinking "Lilleigh is going to crawl any day!" But little did I know that the progression of crawling is a long one.... First there's sitting up and leaning over on the arms. Then there's the little bounce on the arms as they try to balance. Meanwhile there's also the rolling from back to front and spending more time on the tummy and eventually pushing up from their tummy with their arms. Eventually they push their way backwards (knees down). And then they move by reaching their arms to the side... causing them to move in circles. And the knees may start coming up some. And then FINALLY the army crawl. Later the normal crawl. Quite the ordeal!

Lilleigh's first army crawl...

We don't have hardwoods. We were visiting a friend. So it may be a few days more before we see this sort of progress at home on our carpet. As you can imagine, crawling on carpet is a bit more difficult.

PS 9 month photos are coming... they're just late...

This and That

2011-11-07T21:31:00.000-06:00

Well it was a wonderful birthday! Brendon was working on the Right Now conference all week, but Friday was the last day. So all of the Right Now conference staffers had a big breakfast. Lil and I went as his guests. :) Then my sweet daddio came up and took us to The Cheesecake Factory Friday night and then also to Square Burger in downtown McKinney on Saturday. {Have I mentioned that I looove downtown McKinney? I'll have to save that for another post.} And of course, Lilleigh was a sweet little angel for both of our outings. Her good behavior tells me she likes eating out in restaurants. :)

Then the next night my sweet friend Randi and her hubby and baby hosted us for another birthday dinner. Stellar best friend, right? And beforehand, we took family photos of them. That was actually part of McKinley's first birthday gift - first year photos - and we just now got around to it. It was just so hot in August...

I think the photos turned out pretty great! And as you can see, we had them take a couple of us for our Christmas card this year.

Thanks also for the words of encouragement from so many of you. A lot of you have already figured it out, but I didn't want to say anything on my blog until it was public knowledge. Sweet Randi was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple weeks ago. Doctors are optimistic, but it will still be a long road ahead. Randi and Matt never fail to amaze me. Their faith in the Lord is stronger than ever. I'm so thankful to live life with them. I can't wait to see how God uses their story to impact His kingdom. Keep up with their journey through their blog: Treasures in Heaven.

So how'd we sleep?

2011-11-03T09:04:00.001-05:00

Well, Lil woke up at 3 AM. A vast improvement from the 11 PM and 2 AM she had been doing. (That's in addition to her early morning feeding around 4:30-5:30 AM, which I consider normal and sleeping through the night.)

So at 3 AM, Brendon went in there and laid on the bed beside her crib. (And when he went in there, I set my phone alarm to go off in 15 minutes, knowing if she was still crying that I'd go in and nurse her.) She wouldn't calm down, but then about a minute before my phone alarm went off, there was silence. Turns out Brendon had picked her up and decided to rock her. She calmed down. Every so often she'd get squirmy, but he'd talk to her, pray with her, and do the shushing sound. (Shushing is good... comforting I guess. Sorta like white noise.) I don't think that lasted long because she did fall back asleep. He put her back in her crib and laid in the bed beside it.

She woke up a couple of other times, and I'd hear a brief cry, followed by a shushing sound. Brendon didn't pick her up again. But he'd reach his arm into her crib to scratch her back and let her know he was there. And shush.

Lil woke up again at 5, so I went in to feed her.

I think we followed the doctor's instructions decently well. And it accomplished the goal, which is good! So here's the hoping she will begin to sleep through the night again!

I should also note that if you're a parent wanting to try this with your baby, our pediatrician said he really thought object permanence was the issue partially because when she cries in the middle of the night, she calms down almost immediately when we walk in the room. If she were hungry, she'd continue being frantic. That does NOT mean that if we were to walk in her room and she calmed down before realizing she wasn't going to get picked up or nursed, only to cry again, that she's hungry. That's an object permanence thing, according to our pedi.

Lil Almost-9-Month Pedi Appointment Update!

2011-11-02T17:38:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the pediatrician! Despite the fact that Lil is 4 days shy of 9 months (CRAZY!), since we went prior to 9 months, it's technically her 8-month well baby check. Whatev.

Before we get to all the fun pediatrician stuff. I should tell you about our morning. I planned to leave Bible study early this morning in order to get Lil home in time to have an early lunch and nap. And to hope she fell for that trick. I moved everything up by an hour. (Naps are a must. They keep MOM sane.) Keep in mind also that Lilleigh refused to take a morning nap this morning. (I'll explain that part later.) Basically this morning, she slept all of 10 minutes. Great start to my planned out day. Missing morning nap is always a ticket for trouble.

So I left Bible study early. I was on the elevators going downstairs to walk over to childcare, when I heard two staffers talking...

Man: How's it going over there day today?

Woman: I've actually been over here looking for a mom whose baby won't stop crying. She's not answering her phone, and we can't find her.

Great. You know how this is going to end right? I wasn't sure if I should hang my head and walk quickly away or make a joke... I mean surely she wasn't talking about Lilleigh right? They hardly ever call a parent, so that child must really be screaming...

I jumped in the convo, laughing, Oh no, I hope that's not my child!

The lady quickly turned around, What's your name?

Ashleigh.

Lankford?

Shooooot. Yes...

I'm the mother of the crying baby. The one who doesn't answer her phone when child care calls. Oops. :)

Back to the appointment...

Her stats:
28.5 inches long - 85th percentile TALL baby! (Not my genes...)
18 lbs exactly - 38%
17.75 head circumference - 83%

And our doctor had some advice for getting Lil to sleep through the night again. He thinks he issue is that on top of building new skills (near crawling, etc), she's discovered object permanence.

Weren't paying attention in developmental psychology when your prof went over that term? Let me break it down. Object Permanence: When Mom and Dad leave the room, Lil has connected the dots that we are still around. Still in the house. AND that if she cries, we will come back. So a little cause and effect also.

This makes sense because she has recently started pushing down her crib bumper and peeking out over the top, looking out the door for us to walk by. Then if she sees us, she starts crying and won't stop. She actually might cry even if she doesn't see us. She just knows. So there have been several naps where she's cried herself to sleep lately. And then we've found her asleep on the crib bumper. Whatcha gonna do?

So the solution to this object-permanence-wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night issue? Dr Naidoo (our awesome pediatrician) says to go in but not nurse her (shame on me for doing that... I missed the boat that I was supposed to stop that long ago) and to lay on the bed we have in there. We aren't to communicate with her. But just lay there, so she knows we are there and is comforted. I'm expecting a fight, since she's used to getting nursed. (Grrr bad mommy habit) He said not to let her cry more than 15 minutes and then to nurse if she's still crying. I'm expecting to have to do this for several nights. But Dr Naidoo seems to think that after awhile of this, she'll stop. Fingers crossed...

My Birthday Wish List

2011-11-01T09:59:00.004-05:00

It's almost my birthday!!
Here are a few things on my wish list that I've been eying.

Bday 2011 Wish List by ashleighsmu featuring leopard shoes

TOMS leopard shoes
$54 - toms.com

Amazon.com: OtterBox Universal Defender Case for iPhone 4 (Red...
$25 - amazon.com -- I don't really want this iPhone case. It's not cute. BUT friends say it's toddler proof, which is a must. So OtterBox it is! Unless Brendon researches and finds something better...

Apple iPhone 4S
mobilephonesdirect.co.uk -- Hoping some stores get them in stock soon since my contract is up! Hubby's jobi s to track one down. :)

Wish List / Kinda pricey, but I would totally buy it if I could figure...
pinterest.com -- Sold out. Boo!!!

Erin Condren : 2011-12 life planner -candy lace [PLN12-11] - $50.00
erincondren.com -- My momma bought me this! Not that I know that...

I love birthdays!

What's on your wish list at the moment?

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T21:22:00.000-05:00

Before the day is over, we just wanted to say Happy Halloween!

And a few photos from our Halloween block party tonight, which we hosted. (Momma is exhausted from cleaning and cooking all day!!)

Baby monkey and Momma monkey

Sweet baby monkey


Two monkeys and their zoo keeper.

The best part of Brendon's costume was this awesome stuffed monkey whose arms wrapped around his neck and hung there. He wore it the first part of the night, but then it went missing. Too bad it didn't make the photo! It was pretty great! Oh and I had on yellow converses with my kiddie monkey costume. Also great. We came across these amazing costumes at my BFF Randi's mother-in-law's house... in her costume ROOM. {Their house is basically a huge play ground.}

For our party, we, along with three other couples, made the chili and everyone else brought sides, drinks, desserts, etc. It worked out well! And thankfully we had more than enough chili... there was 50+ people!!

We hung out in the backyard because it was a BEAUTIFUL night! And the kiddos loooved the chickens! The chickens remained in their coop, but our backyard was like the main attraction at the zoo!

I'd say our first annual Halloween block party was a success!

Cute baby and Momma's latest project!

2011-10-29T08:26:00.001-05:00

Check out this sweet little winter hat I got for Lilleigh! Quite the deal at Old Navy.


This isn't the best photo of the hat, but it's sooo cute of Lil!

And check out this awesome idea for living room decor. Using an old pallet! I had Brendon bring me home one from his work warehouse.

So I need to sand and stain it. Possibly reconfigure ours a bit... It looks slightly different. Oh and it's HEAVY! So Brendon has a fun job cut out for himself... finding the studs and anchoring this baby down! But so creative, right??

PS Thanks for your sweet comments yesterday. We are hanging in there. Trying to love our sweet friends well.

Breathe.

2011-10-27T22:54:00.000-05:00

I've been a little MIA in blog land. I guess I don't know how much to share or where to even begin. I'll say this - I wasn't prepared for the curve ball life has thrown this week. Sometimes life is just hard. I know it's through trials that God strengthens us the most. But it's really hard to be thankful for them in the midst of them. I'll share more in weeks to come.

For now, check out this video. The music video part is kinda lame, but the song is beautiful - too beautiful for me to just write out the lyrics. It needs to be heard. Close your eyes and listen to the truths in this song.

Peek-A-Boo!

2011-10-23T19:24:00.000-05:00

Lil loooves to play peek-a-boo! Worth watching. Well, I'm biased.

Oh and an update... On Friday I was all set to begin Lilleigh boot camp tonight (since my mom was here over the weekend), but Lilleigh decided to go back to sleeping through the night on her own Friday and Saturday! Phew! Thank you, Lord! Praise Him.

An Update on Lil, Sleeping, Chickens, etc

2011-10-21T16:55:00.000-05:00

Some updates for ya...

1. Lilleigh - She is doing MUCH better! Yea! Her fever broke Tuesday night, and she's been oh so happy ever since! Yea! Her runny nose is lingering, but we can manage that. Meanwhile, I got sick Wednesday night (on top of the cold I already had), but after some elderberry Brendon picked up at Sprouts, I've been feeling much better! And today my cold seems to almost be gone! ...Just in time for Brendon to get a cold. Ugh! No one told me how much sickness comes with having a baby! They get something from other babies, and then it spread through the house like wildfire! Pretty crazy.

2. Sleeping - Still not a whole lot of sleeping happening here. Lilleigh has been averaging two wake ups per night. (Notice the word "averaging.") This weekend her Mimi is in town, so we'll let Mimi sleep. But after this weekend, it's Lilleigh boot camp! It's like Ab Ripper X - "I hate it, but I love it." I'm prepared for several sleepless nights of crying. But Lilleigh was an expert sleeper early on, so I know she can get it together. Meanwhile, Brendon needs to get some ear plugs, and I need to come up with some craft and blogging projects to entertain me during those looong nights ahead... Any craft ideas welcome. Feel free to tag me on Pinterest. :) I plan to go to bed early these nights and then to have projects for Lil's wakeful crying hours. I'm thankful for an awesome neighbor who has already volunteered to watch Lil for an hour or so on Tuesday, so I can get in a nap!

3. Chickens - Both Henrietta and Clara Belle are now laying eggs! Have I mentioned that? Hmm well Brendon is also getting two more HENS tomorrow. So hopefully lots of eggs are in our future!

4. Grief Share - I've been attending a program called Grief Share that a local church puts on. (It's a nationwide ministry though. Check for it near you!) And it's been awesome. I started this class to deal with the loss of my brother. Even though it's been a year and a half and I've done A LOT of counseling since then, I thought it'd be helpful to walk through grief with others dealing with similar (or not so similar, depending on how you look at it) losses. At first I was put in a group with all widows, and that was not so helpful or beneficial. In fact it was a challenge for me, not only because I couldn't relate but also because I wanted to counsel them. (Maybe a new ministry opportunity for me once I finish this class?) Then last week I talked to another leader about it, and they switched me to a new group - one with lots of young women my age and one who even lost a sister. Last week was amazing! This is definitely where I need to be right now. And I'm so thankful for a wonderful husband to watch a sometimes crying (hungry - what are you gonna do when she refuses a bottle?) baby while I do this class! Thanks, B!

5. Lilleigh on solids - A friend just gave me a brilliant idea. I've been brainstorming how to integrate more finger foods into Lil's diet, mainly veggies, because this week she's refusing to allow me to feed her. So I've been giving softer foods that can easily be cut into small pieces: berries, bananas, beans, rice, cooked carrots, and that's about it - hence my need to brainstorm! Anyway my friend Randi said that when her daughter McKinley went through this phase, she gave her bits of bread dipped into the veggie puree. Brilliant! We started this today at snack time. PS If you have any more finger food veggie suggestions, send them my way please!

6. Here's a fun photo from this morning's brunch with friends! Lilleigh and I (and our friend Ashley, the pregnant one in the photo) met up with Amanda and her momma (not in the photo) who were in town visiting Amanda's brother Thomas! So fun seeing great friends!

Trip to the Arboretum!

2011-10-17T14:11:00.001-05:00

Brendon's mom's best friend, Margaret, lives up here in Dallas. And she invited Lilleigh and me to go to the arboretum with her! This time of year is such a fun time to go too! The weather is cool and BEAUTIFUL! And there are pumpkins everywhere! Definitely a sight to see! We loved walking around and taking pics in the pumpkins!

And a little update on my Pumpkin... her eyes are looking better! A friend commented on my blog post from yesterday saying that you can use breastmilk as eye drops to cure pink eye! How crazy is that? Don't worry - I did google it before trying it, and it's true. So we start her on al naturale (and free, I might add) eye drops, and her eyes look SO MUCH BETTER today! Amazing how God provides such natural medicine!

UPDATE: We totally overdid it by going to the Arboretum. Boo! Well, it was also prob just bad timing... I think something else was in her system incubating during this pink eye thing. Ugh! So red spots, a fever, a cold, and pink eye. The doctor says it's viral and will run it's course. We'll be resting at home for the next few days!

A little update on life!

2011-10-16T14:45:00.003-05:00

Just thought I'd give a little update on things around the Lankford house...

Titi and Aunt Momo visit!

Lilleigh's "Titi" and Aunt Morgan ("Momo") visited early last week. It was a fun time for both all of us, but especially Lilleigh and Morgan!

Sick again

And while their visit was fun, Lilleigh caught Morgan's cold, which was actually thought to be allergies because of how long it had lingered. Major bummer! :(

And not just the normal cold. Because kids rub their eyes so much, colds commonly spread to the eyes and turn into pink eye, which is what we are battling here. It's so sad! Last night in the middle of the night, Lil woke up, so I nursed her and laid her back in the her crib. (I'm big on nursing being a source of comfort, and I have no problem with that.) But a few minutes later she was crying again, so we cleaned her eyes of all the goop, gave her eye drops and baby Tylenol, changed her diaper, etc. We did all we could for her before putting her back down, including nursing her again as she fell asleep. But it wasn't enough. She let out little baby cries after I put her down as she resituated herself to sleep. So sad.

The good news is that she is looking much better today! The bad news is that I can't tell if it's spreading to her other eye though... I'm hoping not, though it appears it might be.

Lil was just starting to get sick in this photo. But I just thought this photo of her peeking through the mesh on the side of the stroller was hilarious!

Rearranging

As Brendon says, I'm nesting. Again. And no, I'm not pregnant! I am just making out house more functional! This means making our spare bedroom more than just a guest room. Now it's a joint craft room and guest room. And our over-sized living room is now tastefully divided into two rooms - our living room and a play area!

No pics of the guest room/ craft room just yet. But here's the living room.

Living room before...

View 1... Don't mind the Christmas decor. This is from years ago. Though it's taken on a slightly different look over the years, you get the idea. Oh and we added a chase lounge about a year ago to the wall with the window - in between the couch and TV cabinet. More seating.


View 3 - Notice that the room is centered more around the TV than the fireplace.

Living room after...

View 1 - Couch moved the the middle of the room, parallel with the back wall.

View 2 - The seating is now centered around the fireplace. Hopefully we can get our chimney fixed this winter so that we can actually use our fireplace!

View 4 - Between the couch and the back wall is now Lilleigh's play area! Fun place for her and a great way to keep her stuff out of the way. Also Sammy's bed is now next to the sliding glass door. And from this angle, she can see to the front door and into the backyard. She loves her bad now!

And like I said, sadly, no before or after photo of the craft-guest room, but basically the bed was centered in the room. The head of the bed was under that long window. And now the bed is turned sideways under the window, so it's basically in the corner. And my desk is in the room as well. I'm organizing craft stuff, etc.

I'll post updated pics of both rooms as they come together more! But that's what we are up to - using our house to it's fullest, and making it more functional for our growing family!

And if you have ideas for how to decorate the living room (think walls!), please tell me! That is so not my thing.

Oh by the way, did you notice a big item in our living room missing? Look again.

The TV is gone. We decided we don't want our living room centered around the TV. We want our family time to be more than TV time, and TV is too easy of a distraction for us. So the TV is gone. For now anyway. And we are going to enjoy our time without a TV in our main room! While we do still have one in the bedroom (not the ideal, in our opinion), we are making progress is taking charge of our time!

Church

We are changing churches. While we have loved the church we have attended for the last five years (Well, seven for me), it is time to move on. There are some issues we have struggled with for years within that church. And while we could stay and fight for those issues, when it came down to it - Even if everything we did not like about our old church changed, we still want to be at a church closer to where we live. A church we can attend events at throughout the week, that distance would not be a hindrance to. A church that people in our community attend. And one that we can bring others in our neighborhood to.

Though we have an idea of where we'll end up, we have not officially decided yet. We don't really want to switch churches again. It'd be great if this could be our forever church home, assuming we stay in Dallas anyway. So we want to make certain that this is where we want to be.

I suppose our first main concern is that we want a church that preaches and lives the Gospel well. For us, this involves being in a community group - something our old church didn't really do. We believe it's important to live life with others, to ensure you are glorifying God well. And how can you glorify Him if not everything about your life is in the light? Second main concern - we want a church that is closer to where we live.

This is something we are really excited about! God has been pressing it on our hearts for awhile. It's just taken time for us both to end up in the same place on this. We aren't bitter about our old church at all. We love our friends there and are sad to leave them! But we are definitely excited to see where God leads us!

I'm hearing Ma-Ma's coming from our monitor... LOVE that! I guess nap time/ blog time is over. Ciao!

8 Months!

2011-10-13T15:47:00.001-05:00

I can't believe it's already been 8 months!! Every age has truly been better than the last.

Lilleigh at 8 months...

My rock star sleeper has started waking up during the middle of the night again. Not sure what that's about.
She's reaching and rolling. No crawling just yet. No complaints here.
I've started setting her down with a basket full of toys and letting her unload it herself. Lots more entertaining to unload the basket than it is for Mommy to set toys around her. Why did I not think of this before?
Just after 8 months, she got in a top tooth, making that #3.
Sadly, during the past month Lilleigh and Daddy got the tummy bug. It was so sad!! But Mommy nursed them back to health! Lil even got to have homemade pedialyte.
Mommy finished Lil's nursery.
We traveled to Colorado again, but this time we road tripped!
Over the past month, we switched her to a convertible car seat, which she loves because she can interact more!
We've introduced more solids! Lots of fruits and veggies, plus egg yolk, some meat and dairy and grains.
A few things Lilleigh loves: her Little Tikes outdoor swing, kisses from Sammy, watching the chickens, rolling around on the floor, unpacking baskets of toys, putting her lovey over her head at night (freaks me out every time), and playing the piano with Daddy.

I miss sleeping.

2011-10-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

My dad has asked where the 8 month pics of Lil are. I know other family members are wondering too. I used to be so prompt about this. But then my iPhone broke. Wah. So I've been using my sister's old 3G, which quite a bit slower than my old 3GS. Hence I don't snap the photos in time... well usually it just takes too long for the camera to open up, so I don't try.

So that's one hindrance. Just a minor one though because my contract is up on November 4th, my birthday anyway. So I'm just deciding if I want an iPhone 4 or 4S... I'd love your thoughts!

The real reason I haven't posted though is because I'm exhausted! When I was a new mom, I had the adrenaline kicking in. And I napped often. Plus I expected no sleep, so things were on par. But now I am expecting sleep and not getting it. About a month ago Lil decided to start waking up in the middle of the night again. She's woken up at 4 or 5 AM off and one since she started sleeping through the night, so I don't count that. Sleeping from 6 PM to 4 AM is pretty awesome, if you ask me. But now she's been waking up at 1 or 2ish also. AND in the last two nights at 10 or 11. Might be teething. She did just have a top tooth break through. But for a month?? Maybe it's a habit, and I need to break it... I just don't know!

I will say that the cry it out thing hasn't helped much. I can't last longer than 30 minutes to an hour though. It just seems mean beyond that. Even that seems mean. I'm just hopeful! And each time cry it out has worked, it's worked for like two restful nights. Then we are back to waking up again. Ugh. I'm at a loss for what to do. And at a loss for sleep. Hence less blog posts. But I'll work on getting those together soon! Meanwhile if you have any advice that will get me sleep, let me know. {Oh, and if you're going to say that babies are supposed to wake up during the night and to deal with it, don't bother.}

Playing in the Grass

2011-10-08T20:59:00.000-05:00

We've been enjoying the cool mornings around here! Lilleigh played out in the backyard the other day while I weeded. (Fun times!) Sadly, she noticed that our grass is not as soft and plush as that she experienced in Colorado.

She doesn't seem to mind though.

Look what we found!

2011-10-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

We found our first egg!

The Promise I Have No Right To Make

2011-09-30T06:48:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact that I am home all day, getting things done around the house doesn't seem to be as easy as one would think. Most of the time, I set up a play area for Lilleigh with all of her toys to entertain her, while I go turn off the stove or start a load of laundry. Despite all if the entertain options, every time it seems that I am interrupted with the same whining sound - ehhhhhhh - only to have that whine get louder and louder. She can only be silenced when I pick her up.

In response to such whining, a common phrase around our house has become: I promise, I am not going to leave you, silly girl. But that's a promise that I know isn't mine to make. I am reminded of Isaiah 49:15,

Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

How can that be? I feel as if I could never forget her. How powerful God's love for us must be.

And another thought, Job 14:5

Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You;
And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.

Who am I to make such a promise? A promise that I'll never leave her. Do I determine my days? And for that matter, does making this promise matter anyway? It doesn't stop the whining.

And then I am reminded of the One who can make such a promise. "For He Himself has said, ''I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you' (Hebrews 13:5). But why then do I find myself at times begging him to stay with me, not to leave me. He's already promised me He won't. And His promises aren't like mine. They're based in a love I can't even fathom. A love I can only long to understand.

And though I don't totally get it, I am thankful that I don't have to keep whining. He's heard me. He's picked me up. And He won't let me go.

Schedule or no schedule?

2011-09-29T05:34:00.000-05:00

I know there are moms that do everything by the book and have their babies on a strict schedule, eating at 9 AM, noon, 3 PM, and 6 PM. That's not me. Sometimes I wish it were. Not because I want a strict schedule. That would make me crazy! Never did I think Miss Planner (mwah) would say that! My how I've changed in the past few years! Ha! But the schedule does make things simpler at times.

Then there are the moms that do everything on demand. Naps on demand. Feed on demand. I hate the loosey-gooseyness of this non-schedule. Sometimes I fear I fall into this category.

So where do we fit in?

I try to be somewhere in the middle. I usually can't do 4 feedings, but sometimes we can do 5, since we stretch them out earlier in the morning and later in the evening. But if Lil needs 7 one day, that's fine. I don't really stress over it. I figure she'll tell me when she's hungry. She knows. But at the same time, going a full three hours between feedings means she'll eat better at each feeding. At least that's the case for Lilleigh. Granted the whole no-bottle-thing complicates matters. (Instead of feeding at 9 and then noon, if we have to be somewhere are 11:30, she gets fed again at 11, before we walk out the door! So much strategy involved! I guess a tight schedule wouldn't work for us anyway with this issue.)

Naps throw things off too. If it's been more than an hour or so since she was last fed, Lil wants to nurse prior to nap. Does anyone else have this issue?? And the amount of solids she's eaten doesn't seem to make a difference.

Anyways, on days when things are timed well (in my opinion), she goes almost a full 3 hours between feedings and naps correspond with that. Oh to be in a perfect world! Nap times are loosely 9-10:30/11 and 1-3 or 4. And since she often does an early morning feed at 4 or 5, things generally progress from there.

It seems like most of my mommy friends have their babies on strict schedules, but I know this cannot be true of everyone in the world... maybe I have a lot of type A friends? :) Anyway, I thought I'd ask you... what's your routine look like with your little ones?

Disclaimer: I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I go with it! :) I think being more laid back has given me an easy adjustment to motherhood.

The Nursery - GIRLified!

2011-09-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

Back before our little pumpkin was born, I showed you our gender neutral nursery. I thought I loved it then. I had big plans for how I'd change it if we had a boy. And though I was hoping for a girl, I had no idea how I'd spruce up the nursery for a girl. Just knew we'd add pink!

But then in the spring, we got a Pottery Barn catalog that had super cute paper flower cut outs on the walls advertising "Lily" bedding. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, I'm sad to say that the images of the flowers are not online. They are only in the catalog. Photos of the bedding collection online are too close up. So if you don't get their catalog, you'll just have to trust me that it was super cute!

So with that inspiration in mind and the cute green and pink flowered glider which we already had, I decided to play up the green and pink for the nursery. My goal is to be able to reuse as much of the baby stuff as possible if we were to ever have a boy and make it boyish. That was the idea behind gender neutral. Well, that and the fact that we didn't know before hand if we were having a girl or boy. But you get the idea.

The girlified nursery...

Your view when you walk into her room.

The view when sitting on the bed in her room. The door on the right is where I was standing when I took the photo before this one. And the door on the left is the bathroom. Just trying to orient you.
I saw the hooks above the changing table on Pinterest and loved the idea of being able to hang outfits on them. It's a cute idea, but Lilleigh loves pulling things off of them. So other than for show, it doesn't get used much.
Don't mind my camera strap in the bottom left corner of the photo...

Where we feed and glide. The glider was a hand-me down from my sister's room. I just love it!
And the blanket on it was made by a friend. It's super soft! And isn't it beautiful?
The pom-poms were made for a shower I threw, but I loved them too much to throw them away!
And the door... it actually goes outside! How weird is that? One of the oddities of a house from 1959. We put an alarm on it and then put furniture in front of it... pretending it's not there!

The chair was Lil's Easter present from my dad.
And the door goes to Lil's closet.

This painting was a birthday gift a friend gave me in college. The colors just matched well! But I may actually have to find a new place for it because I want to paint this on a canvas to put in this space.

A close up of the paper flowers. They're so springtime-y!

The cross and denim pillows were made by a good friend's mom and given to me in high school.
The bunny actually has Lilleigh's name on its ear, and its name is Hoppy! The sweet kids I used to babysit for gave it to Lilleigh. They each have their own.
I made the big pink pillow. I just love the fabric! So soft.
And the wooly mammoth or elephant (its debatable) is from Brendon's sister, who has superb taste in stuffed animals!

Pom-poms! Yea! And the frame was a gift from a sweet friend. She's so good to coordinate it with Lil's room.

And the bow holder which hangs in the bathroom!

And what was Lilleigh doing while I was taking all of these photos?

Rolling around in her crib, of course!

Pumpkin Patch!

2011-09-27T11:29:00.000-05:00

We're excited for fall around here! So we headed out to the pumpkin patch this morning with some neighbors to get some great pics! Morning seemed like the best time for this due to naps and lighting. Unfortunately though, the patch wasn't officially open, so we'll have to go back another time to actually buy pumpkins!

Lilleigh with out 2-year-old neighbor Luke

Sick Baby

2011-09-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

I was uber impressed when our baby girl napped THREE hours today! That should have been a red flag to me, but I figured with our recent travels and her short morning nap, she probably needed it. When she finally called out to me that she had woken up, I went in to find her covered in vomit - and smiling! Poor baby girl!

I have one sick baby on my hands! Please pray she makes a speedy recovery! While she's happy, she's also projectile vomiting, which can't be good...

Loving Colorado

2011-09-22T22:11:00.001-05:00

We just recently got back from our road trip to Colorado (hence the lack of blog posts), where we visited with lots of family and hung out in the cool and rainy weather (both of which Texas had been lacking until our return).

We drove up to Breckenridge in a day! Yes, with a baby and a dog! The dog is actually easy. And amazingly Lilleigh was a trooper! She fussed some at nap times, but other than that, she didn't even have a meltdown until bedtime when she was still stuck in her car seat - that's HUGE! I would have had a meltdown way before that...

Happy baby in the car!

We got to see the dog trials, where Border Collies corralled sheep. It sounds boring, but it's amazing what these dogs can be trained to do! Just take my word for it - you'll have to check it out sometime. I think my favorite part of the dog trials (which is more of a festival really because you can walk around to different events) was the agility course. Dogs participated in relay races! Just crazy! I took photos, but they don't do the event justice, so we'll skip them.

Not only did we get to see Brendon's grandparents while we were there, but we also crossed paths with his mom, my dad, and some of my Kansas family too.

Here are some photos from our trip!

Playing in the grass... we love digging our toes into Colorado's "carpet grass"

Lots of rain during the dog trials, unfortunately


Walking into town in Breckenridge to grab a Starbucks! It was COLD!

By the way the double stroller in the photos is one I found at a garage sale to take up to the grandparents' house in Colorado to be used by the cousins... there's no announcement here. Just thought I'd clarify! ;)

Learning to Forgive

2011-09-09T23:35:00.000-05:00

As believers we are called to forgive others. This is an act of obedience. Not to mention, it'd be pretty hypocritical for us not to forgive others, considering He's forgiven us.

But what about when someone hurts you or someone you love? Intentionally. How do you forgive someone who has acted maliciously?

With the anniversary of 9/11, I know many of those who lost loved ones are facing this same question. How can they forgive men who hijacked planes and flew them into buildings? How can you forgive men who killed so many innocent people? Who took fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters. And on purpose. All to serve a violent, vengeful god, whom they call Allah. (Why would they even want to serve such a god? Don't get me started on that.)

How can you forgive such people? This issue has been heavy on my heart. And though the timing is fitting, I'm not talking about 9/11.

Forgiveness is a hard issue. If I'm honest with myself, I'm sure a difficulty to forgive has something to do with me not recognizing my own sin and what it means that I am forgiven.

Over the years, I've come to believe it's as much about us as it is about the other person. It's not just releasing that other person from their sin... it's releasing yourself. It's allowing yourself to feel peace. To be angry, yes. But to deal with that anger and eventually move beyond it.

I once heard it said this way, "Forgiveness means saying, 'It was wrong. It mattered. And I release you.'" (Taken from Wild At Heart ...Hopefully I got the quote right.) This has always stuck with me. I think what I love about this quote is that it recognizes the wrongness of what occurred. And it doesn't justify it. The reality of the sin is allowed to sink in and sit there. And yet, in this quote, John Eldridge also makes it clear that forgiveness is a choice. It's not a feeling. It's a conscious decision one makes. And part of that decision involves releasing control over the emotions gripping us and over the circumstances and even over the offender.

Tonight I pray that the Lord will help me to forgive.

7 Months

2011-09-08T20:24:00.000-05:00

Lilleigh is 7 months old!!!

Lil at 7 months...

She sits up great! Though she isn't catching herself when she falls, she doesn't fall as often. This is a great age. Not mobile but independent enough that I can sit her on the floor with toys, and she's golden. Totally enjoying it.
Reaching when she's sitting. No crawling. Not even close. But I wonder if she'll crawl from reaching, rather than from playing on her tummy.
She's making syllables... da-da, ba-ba, ma-ma. So fun!!
Her sippy cup is her favorite toy. And she sorta drank milk from it. Just a bit, but it's a start!
Solids: Apple, sweet potato, peas, squash, zucchini, chicken (shredded), avocado, tomato (cut up really small), tangerine (suck on it), watermelon.
This does mean her poop has changed. (Sorry, Dad. I had to say it. But really, you're the only one who complains! Everyone else laughs. :) For those of you interested in cloth diapers, I've been experimenting with rice paper liners. So far I like them, but I've been hesitant to use them at home because our pipes are so old. They'll be great for travel though.
We moved Lilleigh up to her big girl car convertible seat! We inherited a Britax Advocate from my sister. (It's a beast of a car seat, but gotta love Britax!) And I had planned to buy another Britax, possibly the Roundabout, at the BabiesRUs trade-in event. I had done a lot of research and studied Baby Bargains, but I went in with an open mind. I'm glad I did! I ended up buying the Evenflo Symphony, which we LOVE! It is slightly more reclined that the Britax, and I can see a difference in how comfortable Lilleigh is. (No crying when she tries to sleep.) Plus it's way cuter. And it has a cup holder. Same rating in Baby Bargains as the Roundabout.
Size 6-9 month clothes. 6 month dresses. 9 month rompers or pants... she's tall. Still middle snap of cloth diapers. Size 3 disposables.
She still loves sleeping on her tummy. And though she does struggle at times to get back onto her back, I have seen her roll! She can do it as long as she stays calm. But when she gets worked up, it's all downhill.

I know there's lots more I could say, but that's all I can think of for now!

A Blog Update

2011-09-08T19:56:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to update you all that Thankfully Thrifty has been salvaged! Thanks to Securi! (Read my full post here.)

Since I was able to get this done cheaply, I will not be creating a new blog. But I will certainly be changing Thankfully Thrifty. For those of you who follow it often, you've probably noticed a transition in recent months. So I'm not sure if you'll notice the transition... mainly because I'm not sure how big the changes will be at this point. I'm still thinking through it all.

Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads up! I have loved your feedback! I am excited to take on a new direction of Thankfully Thrifty.

Blog Help

2011-09-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

My Thankfully Thrifty blog was hacked. That's the short of this. It's going to be ridiculously expensive to salvage. While there are things I could do to rectify it possibly, they are all very tedious and lengthy. I may still do them, but at the moment I am having new thoughts... thoughts about starting something new.

It makes me sad to think about ending the deal-finding missions of Thankfully Thrifty but relieved too. It's a lot of pressure to post each day. And I've been debating and praying about this for awhile. I'm not sure hacking is an answered prayer, but I think God is using it to direct me.

I love blogging too much to just stop. Which brings me to my next idea. Something that includes a lot of what I love about Thankfully Thrifty, minus each and every deal. Something fun, where I can post often without being limited to thriftiness - though let's be honest, that will naturally flow out because it's ingrained in me.

There's still a lot I would want to keep from Thankfully Thrifty, such as Freebie Friday, Hyatti (the glimpses into my life), Mailbox Monday, and menu planning posts. These are all great ways I save money - well except for Hyatti which is just fun. I will continue to share our journey with finances - how we negotiate, how much we save with cloth diapers, etc. But the list would extend beyond thriftiness. Sometimes I'd share my heart on different issues. Sometimes I'd share clever new uses for things. Other times great Pinterest ideas or crafts I've made. There'd be posts on our raw food adventures too. And with all of this, I'd have freedom to not post one day, to be away from my computer and have that be okay. The time-sensitivity of the deal-finding was wearing on me. So this could be a great new start. I think it'll be a lot of what my blog was evolving into, just without the deal-finding that it was based on.

With this change I'd be giving up a lot of the way I make money blogging, at least at this point, but I think that's a good change. It would also free up my time and allow me to focus on what I'm passionate about - not "print these coupons" or "buy this". I don't blog for money. It's a perk, but it's not my motivation.

And just to clarify, this blog will stay as it is. I love having a blog that friends and family can read to catch up on our lives. I don't do this with Thankfully Thrifty because that blog (like any new one I would start) is for the public... so on there I write things interesting for all. Here I write about us since it's mostly just friends and family reading it.

That said, I'd love your feedback on any of this. Good idea? Bad Idea? Anything you like about Thankfully Thrifty or don't like that you can tell me so I know how to continue heading forward.

And for you creative friends, do you have any good blog names for me? Topics... faith, family, organic and raw foods, thriftiness of course, and more... I don't want to be limited by my name the way I kinda am now. I'm not opposed to something with "mom" (or a version of it) in the title, but it'd have to be catchy... I'm always trying to be careful not to base my identity (as a person and blogger) in mothering.

Thanks for any feedback!

Two Roosters.

2011-09-06T07:08:00.000-05:00

So it turns out that out of our four laying hens, we have two roosters. Queeny and Ida May. This explain a lot - like why the two of them sometimes go at it. And why we don't have eggs. (The heat and the fact that they have not been mature until now also explains that.)

My neighbor was watching them this weekend while we were in Houston for Labor Day (pics from the weekend to come), and she texted saying she heard cockadoodling! Don't get me wrong, cockadoodling IS loud, but when the rooster are inside the coop and we are inside our house, you can't hear it. Outside you hear it, but it doesn't wake one up or anything. Thankfully. Otherwise I'm sure we would have gotten a letter from the city already. They do that sorta thing.

Needless to say, Queeny and Ida May will be finding new homes. I'm tempted to say we should eat them. But I don't want to have to pluck their feathers. Or kill them. Queeny is too pretty for that... I'm actually sad we have to get rid of her.

Just goes to show that everyone we talked to was right - it is very hard to tell a rooster from a hen. You just have to watch and wait. Fingers crossed our replacements will be hens!

For your entertainment, a video of them cockadoodling! It's very funnny. Worth the watch.

Matchy Matchy

2011-08-30T19:44:00.000-05:00

Don't you love how Randi and I dress our baby girls in matching outfits?

I'm not sure which is cuter - the fact that they match or McKinley's teal converses. I want them. For Lil. And maybe me too.

When Daddy Leaves.

2011-08-28T18:52:00.001-05:00

Brendon is on a business trip until Wednesday. He's been gone less than 48 hours. But I think Lilleigh detects his disappearance and doesn't like it. Here's the play by play of our weekend thus far.

Both today and yesterday she decided to take naps half the length of her normal naps. Personally, I'm was fine with it. But that means she's more likely to be cranky. Not okay.

Despite her short naps, Lilleigh was okay yesterday. So I decided to brave it and take her with me to our Young Couples cook out for the first hour (6-7 PM - nothing crazy). She was happy in the car. Great. But the moment we walked in the door, she started crying. And each time someone greeted her, she burst into tears... starting with the "oooooh" and {enter the loud cry}. Lovely. I stayed long enough to eat. I had come all that way, might as well. Fun times.

Then bath time went terribly awry this evening. I've heard mommas talk about their babies making little "floaties" in the water. I remember my sister, specifically, doing this, mainly because we shared a bathtub and I was always disgusted to use it after such an occurrence! So this was like that. Only not. It was breastmilk poop. Which means it's not solid. It makes the water look like a yellow grenade went off. I spared you all from photos.

Oh, joy! Daddy, please come home soon!

Weight Loss Update!

2011-08-27T17:37:00.000-05:00

I've been stuck at 8 lbs for awhile now. And lately I've been discouraged. It seems I'll have a spurt of weight loss and then a lull. I'm tired of the lull.

But good news, my friends! I just bought shorts at Target yesterday - and they are two sizes smaller than a pair I bought right after having Lil! So I braved the scale...

I'm down to 5 pounds!!!

Wahoo!!

Neighborhood Love

2011-08-26T21:07:00.000-05:00

I have probably mentioned before that our neighborhood is baby central. Not kidding there were at least 11 babies born within this past school year. Most of those were firstborns. It's seriously nuts! It's been so fun to live in a neighborhood with lots of young families.

We have neighborhood play dates and play groups, which is a huge ministry opportunity. I'll blog more about that later. But I just love knowing the other families in the neighborhood and recognizing a friendly face when I push the stroller down the street. There are so many sweet neighbors! Lots of stay-at-home (and equally as many working) mommas. And lots of sweet babies and kiddos.

One of my neighbors is actually an old sorority sister of mine too. (I sound like an old lady... hmm... "young sorority sister" sound better?) Anyways she and I have been swapping babies! Melissa had her son Braden just 6 weeks after I had Lilleigh. While that makes a big different developmentally for the moment, they are practically the same age, which is lots of fun - and convenient! Neither of us have family in town to help us, so for the past couple of months, we've been each taking a day to watch both babies while the other goes out to run errands, go to doctors appointments, or whatever personal stuff they need to get done. It's been fabulous! You wouldn't believe how much I can get done without a little one to get in and out of the car seat, set up in the grocery cart or stroller, change poop diapers, listen to cry because I'm not going fast enough... the list goes on. I love my Lilleigh. But it truly is amazing how fast I can go without her! Not to mention the fact that I can actually flip through my coupons without thoughts of her having a melt down in the store racing through my mind. All that to say, these swaps are a blessing!

Lilleigh and Braden

I also have one other sweet neighbor Tristyn who comes over to watch Lil often. She just loooves babies. And since she and her hubby (Sean, who I led Young Life with - small world!) don't have kids yet, I encourage her to borrow mine. :) Really though, Tristyn is one of those few people that doesn't get phased by a baby crying, blow outs, spit up, {insert other distasteful baby outburts} and her willingness to love on my child - and to give me time every so often to run to the store alone - blesses me.

I just love our neighborhood!

Grammy came for a visit!

2011-08-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Brendon's mom, Grammy, came for a visit! She actually stayed at the Four Seasons Las Colinas (totally worth checking out if you haven't!) for a couple nights. This was such a treat because we were able to go hang out there and swim!

Lil liked Grammy's hot pink hat.

Drinking water like a big girl. She actually tries to grab our cups, straws, food, etc ALL the time! So if I'm drinking water or milk, I'll give her a sip. Funny because she normally looks at me like I'm crazy afterwards! But she really just loved the water this time!

Two little cuties! Haha. Lil was loving sucking the juice out of the cuties. She actually sucked too hard and sucked the whole slice from my fingers into her mouth! Ay!! Luckily Mommy grabbed it quickly before she should choke. The lesson? Hold on tight!

Daddy and Lilleigh playing!

Do you see her teeth?? Yes, that's right - plural. Tooth #2 broke through this weekend!

Then on Saturday afternoon, Val came to hang out at our house. And Brendon hung up Lilleigh's swing! That was one of those "Honey Do" projects. I think Brendon is thankful to have that crossed off his list! Mommy and Lilleigh are happy about that too!

Lilleigh loves her swing!

Saturday night, Grammy stayed at our house and watched Lilleigh so that Brendon and I could go out for a much needed date night! This was such a blessing!! It was wonderful to reconnect. Since we don't live near family, we jump at the chance to get out just the two of us for a date night! Thanks, Grammy, for coming up!

McKinley Turns One!

2011-08-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

Confused on who McKinley is? The short answer - She's Lil's BFF. Okay really - she's Randi's baby. And Randi is one of my best friends, so therefore, McKinley and Lilleigh must be best friends. Got it? Good. And yes, we know - we are so blessed to get to raise our daughters together!! God knew!

Just to jog your memory - One year ago I blogged about her birth. Crazy how time flies by! Now she's ONE! We celebrated with a swimming party! Matt and Randi could only get their neighborhood pool from 6-8 PM Friday night, which is definitely when Lil wants to be going to bed, but she was a trooper! No fussy babies here.


Mommy and Baby BFFs! I think Lilleigh was jealous of McKinley's birthday hat.

So Aunt Randi gave Lilleigh a birthday hat also.

Daddy gave Lilleigh a piece of watermelon to try. She LOOOVED it! I think they went through several slices of watermelon actually!

Singing happy birthday! McKinley seemed kinda frightened by the whole singing thing if you ask me.

Tummy sleeper

2011-08-16T07:43:00.000-05:00

Lil has turned into a tummy sleeper! She loves rolling from her back to her tummy! And she sleeps well on her tummy. This is wonderful, but the thing is I can't get her to roll from tummy to back for the life of me! Really. I prop her arms under her, and occasionally she'll roll to her back - with that extra help.

She's been rolling from back to tummy since about four months. Until recently though, she'd rarely let herself get all the way onto her tummy. She's roll until she was aaaalmost there and then roll on to her back. Smart baby! The first few nights that she made it onto her tummy, I'd look on our video monitor and see her sleeping soundly. (Surely it was an accident that she ended up that way, right?) Then about an hour or so later, she'd wake up crying because she couldn't roll back. Thankfully though her tummy panicking has stopped. Though she can't roll back over, being on her tummy no longer scares her, and she's comfortable.

That said, hopefully one day soon she'll learn to roll back! For the most part though, she is just content to stay on her tummy. Can't complain I guess. She's happy and not mobile. Both good things!

Lilleigh's Swimming Lessons Paying Off!

2011-08-10T17:43:00.001-05:00

...Well, not really "paying" off, since we didn't pay for them. My friend Alina invited us to do lessons with her and some friends in her backyard. Alina's mom used to work as a swim instructor, and now that Alina has a baby, her mom offered to teach a class for Alina and her friends! Pretty sweet set up, right? We are thankful to Alina and her mom Kristina for inviting us to be a part of it!

Here are several videos we took today. If you don't have time - or patience - to watch them all, just watch the first and last videos. (Since this is a family blog, grandparents, etc read this and will want to see all four I'm sure! Friends, no pressure!) The first is just a cool angle because it's under water. The last one is the one where Lilleigh turns on her own in the water! Pretty neat!

Commentary on video 4: Even though it appears that the instructor turned Lil, actually Lilleigh turned on her own, as Kristina was reaching for her. Pretty cool!

"How did you teach Lilleigh to swim?" you ask. Here's what we've been doing...

Comfortable in the water. We sing lots of songs in the water. Songs that do not involve babies getting dunked. We sing The Wheels on the Bus, The Hokey Pokey, and several others. Really any kids song works I think.
Holding their breath. We taught Lilleigh to hold her breath by counting "1... 2... 3" On the count of 3, I would blow in her face and put her under water. The blowing usually makes babies take a breath in because they're startled. (This wasn't really the case with Lil though.) Over time, the babies learn that "1... 2... 3" is their signal to hold their breath, and you no longer have to blow in their face when putting them under. For us, this looked like me sitting Lilleigh on the edge of the pool, singing a little song (usually Humpty Dumpty - fitting right?) and then at the "fall" part, counting and blowing in her face, as I bring her into the water. When under water, I bring her towards me, so it's like she's swimming in the water. I am holding onto her the whole time.
Kicking. We practiced this by putting Lilleigh tummy down in the water, with her head up out of the water, on my shoulder. I'd walk backwards, so that she would be "swimming" forwards. As we moved, I'd say "kick, kick, kick" and move her legs with my hands. To move her legs, I'd have my hands on her knees, or just above on her thighs, and move them in the kicking motion. You can see her kicking in these videos. It's not that she can "swim," like most of us can, but she appears to be swimming because I gave her a push, and she's kicking also.
Turning in the water. I described how we start out at on the edge of the pool, bring Lil into the water, and have her "swim" towards me as I hold her. This is the same thing, except after a few seconds of her being face down, I gracefully turn her so that she is floating on the water, still supported by me. Overtime, she has learned to do this on her own, as you saw in the video. The idea behind this is that if Lilleigh were ever to fall in the water, she'd know how to turn onto her back to get air - and also to float, which we'll talk about next.
Floating. We are still working on the floating. But basically we just practice with the babies on their backs and the moms supporting their shoulders a lot. Depending on your child and their age, you may have to give them more support. Overtime though Lilleigh has become more comfortable in the water. Today I was only supporting her head as she floated! And of course, for this, like everything else, we sing songs as we do this.

Please do NOT take this blog post as a professional how-to on swimming lessons. I am NOT a professional swim instructor. This is merely what we have been doing with Lilleigh, and it has been working for us.

Lil's Half Birthday!

2011-08-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

Happy half birthday to you! Happy half birthday to you! Happy half birthday, sweet Lilleigh! Happy half birthday to you!

Sweet Lil,

You are now six months old! My time has flown! You have gotten so big. You are no longer my little newborn, but a baby!

I took these cute photos of you on your half birthday.

Oooh a sticker I crunch with my fingers.

You love the toy I got you at a garage sale last weekend.

Here are things that define you at six months:

You can sit up on your own! I put the boppy behind you still most of the time because you do fall after awhile. But each day you are getting stronger! Really. About a week and a half ago you decided to sit on your own, no hands on part of Mommy.
You love to laugh! You laugh when Mommy gives you lots of kisses and throws you up in the air. The saying around here is "Everything's funnier when Momma does it." For whatever reason, you laugh and laugh when I give you kisses or blow raspberries on your tummy, but when Daddy does it, he is lucky to get a smile. Strange how that works.
Mommy is reading Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events book 1 to you. Some may think this is an odd choice of a book to read to you. But I love the language of the book. Plus chapter books help you follow story lines and keep Momma entertained!
You don't really take a bottle... well, not by choice. Grammy gave it to you recently, and you did drink from it. You treated it like a sippy cup, playing with it in your mouth and chewing on it. (You love the sippy cup! That'll be our next attempt.) You drank an ounce that way. No sucking though. Oh and in order to get you to drink that ounce, Grammy had to sing to you and walk around with you to distract you. You certainly make your preferences known!
You are in 6 month clothing and have been for a month and a half. Some 9 month. This is also the point where I would say what diaper size you are, but you're in cloth. So what I know is that in disposables, you should probably be a 3, but since we have 2's left, I've been packing those for you to wear in the church nursery! 90% of the time though you are in cloth diapers, and you recently moved up to the middle snap in those.
You got your first tooth! Botton left. And I think the second one is on it's way in. Oh and in a previous post, I asked for prayer that you wouldn't bite me. Well guess what. You bit me. Tonight. It hurt a bit, but really it just surprised me. I took you off and said NO really firmly. You cried. I hate to make you cry, but hopefully you got the point. Biting and nursing don't go together. I think things will be better from here on out.
You have started to kick in swimming lessons. And you are getting more comfortable floating on your back.
You LOVE other babies! You could watch other babies all day long and be entertained.
At naptimes and bedtime, Mommy sings the song "Morning Town" (aka "Train whistle blowing...") to you, and calm down. When I can tell that you're really tired, you actually smile when I start singing. I think you're relieved to get to go to bed.
You get distracted very quickly while eating. I can't really talk to other people while you eat. I definitely can't watch TV. (Bye, bye, Netflix!) Sometimes you won't even let me read. Not kidding - you'll kick or hit at my book. I correct you, but you get really stirred up.
Mommy started you on solids, sorta. We aren't super regular about it. But you've tried avocado, sweet potato, and tomato. And egg and potato, unofficially. I pureed the sweet potatoes, but I'm tempted to just go the whole food method from here on out. That's what I did with the tomatoes. It's easier and just makes more sense to me.
You do have separation anxiety, but it's not terrible. Well with a couple unlucky friends you've cried the whole time I've been gone, but with others, you've been great, minus the initial sadness. Hopefully things will get better!

I love you, Lil! You are so precious to me! Daddy and I are so blessed to have you in our lives. Happy six month birthday!

Love, Mommy

Pappy Comes to Visit!

2011-08-06T21:03:00.000-05:00

Pappy (aka my dad) came to visit this weekend! The occasion was Lil's half birthday! (Six month photos to come.) We had a great time with him, going to Costco, BJ's Brewery, garage sales, and Tin Star! And of course, we all enjoyed sitting out and watching the chickens. ...I'm telling you, there's so entertaining!

Here are some great photos of Lil with her Pappy.

Help me decide. Because I'm indecisive.

2011-08-04T21:16:00.001-05:00

I need your help. I bought one of those awesome Canvas on Demand Groupons... actually this is my second one to buy. The first canvas turned out awesome by the way! Anyway, with this second one, I need to choose a photo to have printed on it. Here are the contestants...

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Which one do you think we should turn into a 16x20 photo canvas?

A Brief Update

2011-08-04T17:26:00.000-05:00

Here's just a brief update for ya! It's almost Lil's half birthday, so I'll save our more detailed update for then!

Lil cut her first tooth! But she doesn't really like showing me - or anyone for that matter - so no photos. Sorry. There's not a whole lot to see yet anyway! But my prayer is that Lil doesn't bite me! I plan to keep nursing until she's at least a year. Prayers welcome.
We are having some separation anxiety issues here! It's really hit or miss. Sometimes when I leave Lil she cries briefly and then is fine. Other times she cries non-stop until either a) she cries herself to sleep or b) I return.
As for the chickens, no eggs yet. Three aren't mature enough. We don't know anything about the fourth. But when it's above 100 degrees every day, we aren't really counting on eggs for awhile.
If you haven't already seen, I'm giving away a Jeep Liberty Sport X stroller over at Thankfully Thrifty! If you wanna win, do so here!

Lil chewing on her dress. Best photo we could come up with!

A Missed Opportunity

2011-08-03T10:45:00.004-05:00

As I was cleaning up the kitchen this morning, I was reminded of an incident that happened over three years ago, when we were still living in our apartment. I'm not sure what even reminded me of this event, but I feel inclined to share it with you, which basically means I feel that the Lord wants me to share this story with you. Hopefully it'll will strike a cord with at least one of you out there.

It was probably 8 o'clock one evening. And it was winter, so it was dark. Hubby and I were driving home from somewhere. There was a community of houses and town homes next to several apartment complexes, our complex being one of them. We often drove through a neighborhood to get to our apartment. This particular night as we were driving, we noticed an elderly woman (at least in her late 80's) sitting on the curb. It looked as if she had fallen.

So we pulled over. My heart was pounding. Of course, it's the right thing to pull over to help this woman, but we are also very much taught not trust strangers... Don't pull over for a stranger. Don't trust them. But really this is a 80-year-old woman. What was she going to do? So we pulled over and got out of the car to see if she needed help.

I can't remember our conversation very clearly, mainly because her words were jumbled. Her sentences, when complete, just did not make sense. I do remember understanding that she was walking home from her son's house, which was in the nearby neighborhood, and that he was a doctor. When I heard this, I had to refrain myself from passing judgment on this son of hers who a) let her walk home and b) apparently has a house that she could live in... you'll see why later in the story. Point being - I had to refrain myself from judging. After all, I don't know anything about this son of hers.

Brendon helped her up. We asked her where she lived and if she needed a ride. She nodded, so we helped her into the car and depended on her to guide us to her apartment.

Now if you ever visited our apartment, you know that it turned sketchy the last six months we lived there, as the apartment complex next to us turned into government housing. Enough said. Well, the apartment complex she directed us to was far sketchier. It really resembled for a motel with long stretches of balconies and doors to the outside, with a pool in the center courtyard. I'm not really describing it well because this description could be wonderful, but I'll just say that it wasn't wonderful. It was a place I would never want to live.

We drove up and parked. Should we just let her get out? She clearly had dementia, so that just didn't seem like the right thing to do. So we got out with her. We walked up two flights of stairs, to her apartment, and then into her apartment with her. This could have been totally freaky, but we were trusting the Lord on this.

Her apartment was bare. Sure she had a coffee table, TV, and chair, but other than that it was bare. I started to feel the loneliness this woman must endure daily. What an awful feeling. I wanted so badly to tell her about Jesus, to tell her it would be okay, and to tell her I'm sure her son loves her. I was in an evangelism class at the time (seminary credit). I should be able to tell the gospel to someone easily, right? So why was it so hard? I felt frozen by fear.

That's when this woman went to her fridge and grabbed two hot dogs. No buns. Just the dogs. Then she grabbed a bagel and broke it in half, giving us each a piece, along with the hot dogs. Like I said, this woman's apartment was bare. She gave us all she had to offer us. We tried to politely decline. After all, that was her only food! But she insisted and practically shoved it in our mouths. So we stood there politely and ate.

Then she walked over to her big Bible laying on her table and showed it to me with a picture of Jesus. I can't tell you how I felt at this moment. Ashamed that I couldn't even say His name, yet she could tell me about Him. And also relieved that she knew the Lord. We made conversation with her, asking her about her faith and where she was from. We understood bits and pieces of what she said.

Eventually we left. We told her we'd come back. We meant to. But sadly, it didn't happen. Truthfully, it's not as if she would have remembered anyway. But still.

The Lord taught me a lot that night. He taught me to trust Him. To take advantage of the opportunities He presents. And to give sacrificially.

I don't know why I share this with you. I just feel like God laid it on my heart. A missed opportunity. It makes me sad to think about how many opportunities like this - or more subtle - that I miss. Whether they are chances to share the gospel or to give generously. Don't miss the opportunities He gives.

And I'm double posting this. It'll be on Thankfully Thrifty as well!

The chicken has a name!

2011-08-03T08:22:00.000-05:00

This little chicken has a name! Thanks to the unknowing collaboration of Elizabeth Daines and Brendon's boss's wife Jackie, chicky has a name! Please meet Clara Belle!

What I didn't mention is that there's a prize for the winners! ...Mainly because we just decided that there should be a prize! What is it you ask? Homemade soap, of course! Because hubby has been experimenting with making his own soap. Al naturale. We're so country.

What a big girl!

2011-07-30T22:57:00.000-05:00

Look who's sitting up all by herself! (Though usually a Boppy is there ...just in case.)

This is a toy that I got Lil at a garage sale today. $5! Score!

And look at her eating solids and (sorta) drinking from a sippy cup!

She loves her sippy cup!

What we do all day.

2011-07-30T13:06:00.001-05:00

I love being a stay at home mom! I feel so blessed that I get to stay at home with sweet Lilleigh. I've been asked many times by friends what Lilleigh and I do all day. I think many people get the impression that being a stay at home moms means I am either sitting at home drinking mojitos each day or standing in my kitchen twiddling my thumbs. Let me assure you that neither are true.

While I am incredibly thankful to be able to stay home, being a stay at home mom is neither a walk in the park or a bore. It's a busy job! We have fun things scheduled during the week, and during Lilleigh's naps, I try to keep up with cooking, laundry, and cleaning, which to be honest isn't always possible. But my husband doesn't complain! Oh and I blog too! :)

When Lilleigh is awake, we play, sing songs, read books, change diapers, eat, go on walks (when it's not too hot), and just have fun! I love her active time! I think many of the people who picture a stay at home mom having all the cooking and cleaning done forget that someone has to care for and entertain the baby!

A typical week looks like...
Monday - Possibly meet up with a friend for lunch, have a play date, or some other fun activity.
Tuesday - Bible study with other moms and babies at our house in the afternoon.
Wednesday - Swimming lessons in the morning. We also sometimes have neighborhood play groups in the afternoon.
Thursday - Play group in the afternoon.
Friday - Run errands. (Though Monday and Friday are interchangeable.)

I try to be flexible and not keep Lil on too rigid of a schedule. While schedules are great, especially for someone type A like me, I choose not to keep Lil on one. My personal preference. The hope is that she will be go with the flow.

This does not mean that I am Mommy Loosey Goosey. While I love taking Lil out and being active, I am actually very intentional to not overbook us. I really try not to have more than one main event each day for Lil's sake - well, and mine! I can let Lil miss one nap, but I try to let her get the other two in. (She's a three nap napper. Typical for her age.)

As you can see from our week above, we are on-the-go a lot during the week, so truthfully, I long for the days that we can stay home all day! This means Lil gets all 3 naps, and I might actually get dinner cooked AND the house cleaned! Imagine that! Plus it's just nice not having to cart a baby around... nice to slow down!

Here are some photos and videos of us at our different activities...

Lil with her baby friends at swimming lessons. The instructor is a friend's mom. She's teaching the babies to hold their breath, kick, and even roll onto their backs in the water. Lil can do the first two. We're getting there! Yea, Lil! ...By the way, something cool - all three babies in this photo were delivered by my midwife.

Lil (third from the right, yellow dress and pink diaper) with her play group friends!

Lilleigh and her friend Felicity having a play date before Bible study

Okay so occasionally Mommy uses free time at home to dress Lil up for photo shoots. But who wouldn't want to photograph this cute munchkin?

Lil playing with toys - her favorite activity when we have a nice leisurely day at home.


Mommy and Lil at Baby Bounce, which is a free event put on a few times a week by our public library. Lil LOVED it!

And here's a video of Baby Bounce. It's shaky, and really not a great video at all, just to be honest. But it gives you an idea of what Baby Bounce is. And why Lil loves it - music, clapping, and LOTS of other mommies and babies!

This post was a little all over the place, but hopefully you were able to follow. Hope you enjoyed the glimpse into our life at home!

Baby Mozart

2011-07-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

I have to brag on my husband here. Brendon is an AMAZING piano player. He can play pretty much anything you put in front of him. In the winter, he'll play Christmas music. Lately he's taken to playing hymns. But what I love the most is when he plays by ear and makes up tunes as he goes. And because he's also an awesome daddy, he often puts Lilleigh on his lap and plays the piano with her.

Lilleigh loves it and even tries to play the piano herself. This one great quality that I hope she gets from her daddy!

Chicken Introductions

2011-07-28T21:39:00.000-05:00

I've held off on introductions long enough. Without further ado...

This is "Tail Feathers" aka the still nameless hen. She needs a name desperately. I just haven't had a name that's popped out at me. Any ideas?

A little about "Tail Feathers"... She's been termed this temporary (I hope) nickname because she was the only Rhode Island Red that we got who still had all of her tail feathers. This is probably because she can fend for herself. She isn't fiesty, like Queeny who we'll get to later, but there is no doubt that she's second in command (behind Queeny, of course). She's also pretty daring. This hen used to walk up to Sammy and peck her in the nose. Then Sammy showed her she isn't one to be messed with.

This is Henrietta. She got this name because there's a children's book I love called Henry the Dog with No Tail. Well, this is Henrietta, the hen with no tail feathers. When we got her, her tail feathers had already been plucked out. You may have already guessed the reason for this - she's not the boss. She's more submissive to the other chickens, careful not to get in the way. Still, this chicken is very people-friendly. She has jumped up on the bench several times next to Brendon to sit with him. She is also the chicken that came after my dinner. Just walked right up to my plate like it was no big deal.

This is Ida May. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you how she got her name. Almost. Notice the bright red above and below her beak. (Anyone know what that's called by the way??) And her feet are the yellowest of all. Red and yellow. Red and yellow. Hmmm I didn't have to think hard about this one. Red and yellow = Chi O. One of the founders of Chi O was Ida May Bowles. I told you... embarrassing. Either way, it sounded like a good country name!

Ida May is the most independent of the hens. She tends to wonder off. And when the other hens go running, she is content to stay pecking where she is.

This is Queeny. Queeny came from a sketchy feed store just South of Dallas. We got her 24 hours before the other three chickens. Enough time for her to claim the chicken run and coop. When the three new hens showed up, she considered them unwelcome guests. The three new hens, or "the girls," hung out in the coop for a full 24 hours. Of course it was Tail Feathers who first ventured out, but Queeny showed her. Queeny squacked and pecked at her until she went back up in the coop! All that to say, Queeny was almost given away. I actually had someone ready to pick her up, but they had to delay a day in coming. During their 24 hour delay, Queeny straightened up and started to get along. So she remains. And I'm glad she was able to stay too. She adds some good entertainment to our evenings, chicken watching.

Thanks for meeting our chickens! Don't forget "Tail Feathers" needs a real name! Please submit your ideas.

Just Another Evening at Home with the Chickens...

2011-07-28T20:58:00.000-05:00

Just another evening hanging out in the backyard with the chickens! The chickens were becoming interested in my dinner, so I gave them a few spaghetti noodles. And guess what. They like them. A lot. Sooo I gave them more. So it's spaghetti noodles that they are pecking off the ground. Queeny was getting kinda territorial over the noodles though. She nipped Henrietta, the hen without tails feathers, in the butt, as you'll see on this video.

The Finished Coop

2011-07-17T20:43:00.001-05:00

And I just realized that I never posted a picture of the coop complete. Shame on me! Bad, blogger! Here it is...

The finished coop.

Brendon, his dad, and Lilleigh in front of their finished creation. The chicken coop!

Isn't it gorgeous? When they said they were building a chicken coop, I wasn't expecting it to look like this! My hubby and father-in-law did an awesome job! They are fighting it now, but they will be building sweet Lil a play house in the future! Once she can look at them with those big blue eyes and ask herself, they won't be able to say no! ;)

And some chicken photos...

Queeny... This was before the other three - "the girls" - came along.

And here are "the girls."

Our Weekend: Harry Potter, Teething, Chickens, & More!

2011-07-17T20:28:00.001-05:00

This past weekend Brendon's mom (Val) came into town. She was so excited to come up to see Lil and also to celebrate Brendon's birthday, which was last weekend.

Val watched Lil for us while we saw Harry Potter! Uh-mazing. I'm sad that it's over. While Harry Potter is in no way a direct correlation to the Gospel, I do think J.K. Rowling was intentional about the ending. I've heard she's a Christian, and judging by the end of the series, I don't doubt it. (The books are even better though - read them! Or at least get the audio books to listen to!) It's going to be hard to top this series.

When we got home from the movie, Lilleigh was actually sorta drinking from a bottle! She wasn't sucking on it, but she was kinda gnawing on it and drinking from it - more like you would with a sippy cup. Val was walking around with her, singing to her... distracting her, anything to make it seem less like a feeding and more like something fun. Ha. But Lil drank an ounce that way! Yea!!

Brendon and I also got to go out to The Cheesecake Factory one night on a date night! It's so great having a babysitter in town!! Those of you with family in town to babysit, enjoy that. We are always so thankful for a date night!

Today has been a relaxin day! We went to church and came home for lunch and a nap! Lil must have been worn out from having Grammy here because she slept 3 hours!!

Yes, that is a necklace my baby is wearing. It's an amber teething necklace. More on this later.

Don't mind the drool marks on hubby's shirt... It's impossible to avoid those these days.


Brendon reading to Lil and Sammy before bed.

I also managed to get more of Lil's room done this weekend! We are almost there! My goal is to have it finished by the time she turns 6 months, which is in two weeks! As you may remember, the nursery was completed in gender-neutral form before her birth, but then I saw a cute idea in a Pottery Barn catalog, and well, I just had to add to it!


I made these flowers with heavy weight paper. This idea came from a Pottery Barn catalog.

This weekend, I also noticed a sometimes-white-sometimes-red bump on Lil's lower gum! I can feel it too. Lilleigh is teething! I had a feeling this would be anytime now since I teethed early and she's been drooling A TON! She soaks her shirts. It's crazy. Normal, yet crazy. It's exciting for sure, but I just hope the little munchkin doesn't bite me while nursing! OW. Prayers and advice welcome.

Oh, and as for the teething necklace mentioned above... it's an amber teething necklace. Something about amber against the warmth of your skin is supposed to be a natural pain reliever. Pretty cool, really. I've heard great things about them. I'm actually reviewing the necklace for my blog Thankfully Thrifty... I'll let you know my thoughts once she officially cuts her first tooth! ...which by the way, I heard that after feeling and seeing the bump it can still be a month before the tooth cuts!

In other news, I guess I should give a chicken update. We got more supplies for the chicken coop... feeder, water can, etc. And the chickens all seem to be getting along! This is great news because any of you following Thankfully Thrifty on Facebook (my other blog) know that there have been some issues. One chicken, who we've now dubbed "Queeny," was bullying the other three chickens, who we're now referring to as "the girls" - they stick together. Turns out Queeny could only be rude so long. Clearly she's alpha. She's made this known. Now they can all be friends.

We have started naming the chickens. There's just one left to name. So far we have...

Queeny - Because as I said before, she's Alpha.
Ida May - Good country name, plus she has bright red on her head and bright yellow legs, which reminded me of Chi O. Ida May was a Chi O founder. Dork, I know. (By the way, she doesn't really have tail feathers.)
Henrietta - There's a great children's book called Henry the Dog with No Tail. Henrietta lost her tail feathers (way more so than Ida May), so she's Henrietta the hen with no tail feathers.
And then there's the nameless chicken... She does have tail feathers. And she comes up and pecks at Sammy! Just letting her no to leave them alone. This hen is second in command, behind Queeny. Any name ideas?

Lastly in chicken news (The chickens needed their own post!), Sammy managed to get a few of Queeny's tail feathers in her mouth. Needless to say, Queeny was not happy. Now every time Sammy comes outside, the chickens cluck angrily! Haha.

Queeny's tail feathers... courtesy of Sammy the dog

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

2011-07-13T06:30:00.000-05:00

Image from Keeper of the Home

This question has been one I've been asking since before we had kids. I first began thinking about this when I picked up the book A Shot in the Dark, which discusses the possible link between the "P" (Pertussis) in the DPT vaccine and SIDS as well as other neurological issues. Thankfully, the P component has been altered, and now the vaccine is DTaP. (So, moms, breathe a sigh of relief.)

Still, this has been an issue heavy on my heart. There's no easy solution to it. So I'll just tell you right now that I'm not going to give you a solution. My husband and I have come up with a solution that we think works for our family at this point in life, but I'm not going to share that with you. I'm sorry.

I was anxious during pregnancy about vaccines and unsure what we would do for Lilleigh. After reading that book, I was sure I would not vaccinate. But then I talked to my uncle, who was a pediatrician, about all this, and he convinced me that vaccinations were completely necessary and definitely something I should do. Talking to a pediatrician in my family, who I know has my - and my daughter's - best interest at heart, really made me feel more comfortable with the idea of vaccinating. Still, he didn't tell me anything new. His words just seemed more reassuring to me. I want to trust him because he's family and he practices medicine!

I have heard all of the arguments for vaccinations. And I had heard some of them against vaccinations. What I wanted was a non-biased opinion. So in January, I had a friend come talk to a group of moms about them. This friend is the mother of a 2-year-old, a pediatric nurse practitioner, and married to a pediatrician. She spoke honestly about her confidence and her worries with specific vaccines. She shared about the vaccines they skipped or delayed. (Yes, a pediatrician actually skipped giving his child some vaccinations!) After hearing her, I really felt more comfortable with getting Lilleigh vaccinated. Even though there were ones they chose to skip, none of the vaccines seemed to pose much of a risk at all. And some of the diseases they protect against can be terrible and even fatal. I was fully convinced after this that vaccinations were the way to go.

Then recently we've become much more interested in natural living - more organic foods, raising chickens (farm fresh eggs), recycling, cloth diapering, etc. And one of the blogs I subscribe to made me question what I had already decided. Read her posts: one and two. (And that post led me to this one... and two.)

And those blog posts made me want to research more. (I am a researcher. It's a gift, I suppose.) So I read these two books: Educated Decision and The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child. The first is based in homeopathy. I found the case studies really interesting.
However, personally I think I found the second book to be more helpful. I appreciated how Dr Sears talked about the vaccine itself, why we use it, the disease it prevents, how common that disease is and the likelihood of catching it. He also discussing what ingredients are in the vaccines, why some parents choose to skip the particular vaccine, why the vaccine is recommended, and then in a nutshell his perspective. It's well-organized. And it clearly shows that this is not an easy issue.

Your child can get sick from a vaccine. (Even hard-core vaccine doctors will admit this if pressed.) But your child can also get sick if you do not vaccinate. Agh! Why can't this be an easy decision?! As a friend told me a couple years ago - You have to decide which consequence you can live with because your child can get sick either way. I know that's reassuring, but I did think that was a good point. The ore I have learned on the issue, the more I have been able to understand different parents' decisions concerning this. I know some that get every vaccinations on time; some that choose not to get any; and some that spread them out, one per month; and still some that pick and choose. Each is just trying to do the best they can for their child.

Where I have finally landed is this: We have to make the best decisions we can as parents with the knowledge we have. For me to not research this issue would have been ignorant. It's a hot topic. There's a lot of information being thrown at us, so I knew I needed to sort through it all myself. With the knowledge I have gained and a prayerful heart, my husband and I decided what we feel is best for our daughter at this point in time. That may change next year, and we realize this. We have done our best at parents, and now we have to trust the Lord - trust that He led us to our decision and that He is in control even if we are thrown a curve ball. Lilleigh is ultimately His - our job with her, just as with anything else, is to be good stewards with what the Lord has given us. I am just privileged to get to love on her now. No matter what happens, God is ultimately the one in control, and He is sovereign.

So what did we decide? Like I said, I'm not saying here. This is such a hot topic among moms. It's sorta like mommy politics. For some reason, it's taboo. I would love to talk with you privately about it if you are interested, but since this is such a controversial topic, I don't want to open up the comments section in this blog post to brim stone and fire. But wherever you are on the issue, I completely respect your stance. If you haven't researched this topic, I would encourage you to do so, simply so you have solid evidence to base your decision. And then, make a decision, trust in the Lord, and don't doubt yourself or God. Life's too short to be second-guessing.

Happy birthday, Brendon! And more chicken coop photos.

2011-07-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

Another update for ya!


Today is Brendon's 27th birthday! Happy birthday babe!

From the inside

Brendon trapped me. Haha!

Until it's finished, this is the last update!

Chicken Coop Progress

2011-07-10T13:03:00.001-05:00

Here's some of their progress. It should be finished today, and hopefully chickens will be inhabiting it later this week!

Larry and Brendon nailing on the roof.

Progress as of last night.

And as I type this, the door is actually on the coop, see on the left hand side where there is a tall narrow space. And they are also putting up the cedar siding. So I guess I need to get to taking more photos...

And did I mention that it's Brendon's 27th birthday?? Well it is! We had pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. The pancakes had a candle in them of course! Photo of that is also to come.

They're building a chicken coop!

2011-07-09T08:51:00.003-05:00

Brendon and his dad, Larry, have started progress on the chicken coop! Hopefully it will be finished this weekend and ready for chickens!

Sorta a "before" shot

Measuring

Cutting chicken wire

Talking about next steps

Taking a break

Lil and I supervising

Progress as of yesterday evening

Lilleigh is 5 months!

2011-07-08T20:06:00.001-05:00

Lil turned 5 months earlier this week!

Lil at 5 months...

She's been rolling a lot more, but avoids the tummy. The other day I laid her on her tummy to play with her toys on her activity mat. I turned around to send an email, and when I turned back, she was on her back! I missed it! Her first unassisted roll!
More hair! Yea, Lil!
She loves pulling her feet to her mouth and chewing on them.
She enjoys playing in her exersaucer and sitting in her Bumbo seat.
Drooling A LOT! I'm beginning to wonder if those teeth of hers will ever come in.
She now chews on Sophie the Giraffe and her Wubbanubs! I'm hopefully about the bottle, but still no luck.
We swim! And she's in swimming lessons! More on that later.

We took her to her 5 month well-baby check-up today. We have a new pediatrician that we went to today and liked! He's much more on our same page ...whereas the other one was just okay. So that's a good thing! She's now 26" and 15lbs 11oz... 83rd percentile for height (which she clearly didn't get from me!) and 68th for weight!

PS Bear with me while I come up with a new name for my blog... sorry about all the confusion with new names coming up in your feed. I figured now that this blog is not so much a personal blog anymore but also a blog chronicling our lives as a family. So I'm working on a name! Any blog name ideas? (The "farm" thing is a reference to the fact that we are getting chickens! I'll post about that when it happens. Soon though! Very soon.)

Our Story: The Continuation

2011-07-07T11:12:00.001-05:00

If you missed it, see the story of how we met here.

As it turns out Brendon had just transferred to my high school from a private school. He was good friends with a lot of the people I hung out with already. So we began hanging out a lot in group settings and quickly became good friends.

Here we are at Young Life camp (Windy Gap).
It was western night, which sorta explains the drawn on goatee.

Throughout the next two and half years of high school, he pursued me. And of course, I was always dating someone else. Senior year he asked me to both homecoming and prom, and since my boyfriend at the time was in college, I gladly accepted! I thought it would be fun to go to prom with a good friend. Now I think it's fun that I went with my future husband! But not to jump ahead.

Prom! Check out Brendon's shaggy hair and my chubby cheeks!
And don't mind the fact that I took a picture of these pictures in order to share them with you...
finding the DVD they're on and uploading them just seemed like too much of a hassle!

We left for college - me to SMU in Dallas and him to Baylor in Waco. We remained good friends throughout college. He even came up to visit me a few times. (Like I said, he pursued me!) I can clearly remember driving home from college that May after freshman year and having God tell me that I was going to marry Brendon. I love clear moments like that when you distinctly hear God's voice.

That summer we had a brief fling. But honestly, it just didn't feel right. I had gone to college and jumped into becoming a Young Life leader and become super involved in Christian life on the SMU campus. And Brendon, who had been a rock in high school, hadn't really gotten plugged in much at all at Baylor. We were just in two different places. I felt so confused because I thought I had heard God so clearly, but this just didn't add up. We ended up breaking up when the summer ended.

Meanwhile at college I dated some more... and had a not so great experience with a new guy. Things were totally not going my way. And when this new guy broke up with me, for some reason I felt heart broken, even though my family and friends were all sure that he wasn't a good fit for me. And looking back, I know I knew that too.

That summer after sophomore year, I interned with the middle school youth group at the church Brendon grew up at and the church where I had recommitted my life to Christ. Brendon was around that first part of summer, volunteering with the youth - coincidence, I think not. He knew what he was up to! He had planned to go back to Waco in July for summer school, but for "some reason" that didn't happen. We basically spent the entire summer serving the Lord and loving on middle school kids.

And every time sparks started to fly, I backed away. But not because I was afraid. I just knew this would be it. If we dated, we would date for real. There would be no going back to being friends. We would either get married or break up and be done forever. Plus, I really wanted to be completely dedicated to my internship position and those kids. I knew if we started dating, that I'd be... well, distracted. So we waited.

We waited until the week after I was done interning. Then we went on our first real date to Macaroni Grill and to see March of the Penguins. A movie about penguins just seemed so fun... but it was a little boring, let's just be honest. If you haven't seen it, you can pass on that one.

We continued dating that next year, making the hour and a half trip between Waco and Dallas almost every weekend and sometimes during the week!

Brendon graduated that next May - a year early. And that summer he interned (officially this time) with the youth while I studied abroad. But that didn't stop him from coming to visit me!

Mykonos, Greece

And after a few months found a job in Dallas, which made it oh so convenient since I was finishing up at SMU! We got engaged that February, I graduated in May, and we got married in July! 7-7-07!

My SMU graduation

Today marks four years together!

Swimming over the Fourth!

2011-07-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

I just thought this video was so cute! Well, I think every video of Lil is cute, let's just be honest. But in this one she was just having so much fun with her daddy!

Actually after this was taken, she went down for a nap and woke up just as I was walking out the door. So she and daddy went to a pig roast together! Their first father-daughter date! Brendon was proud. What a good daddy!

If you're wondering about the pig roast. Brendon's brother has a friend, whose backyard they've turned into a wiffle ball field. No, I'm not kidding. AND they have (or had) a mascot - wiffle pig! Wiffle pig was NOT the pig being roasted. That was a different pig. And wiffle pig actually got too big to be in the backyard anyway... he's now 200-something pounds and lives out in the country. True story. So the pig roast... they roast a pig (again, NOT wiffle pig), set up of bounce houses, and hang out on the Fourth of July. Fun times! Here are some photos from last year just to give you an idea...

Our Story: How We Met

2011-07-02T14:24:00.002-05:00

July 7th will be Brendon's and my 4 year anniversary! And it occurred to me that in all the time I've had this blog, I've never shared how we met - our story! So here it is.

Our Story
I clearly remember standing at the back of the student section at on of our high school football games, where I was looking for a friend. That's when a guy on crutches came up and started talking to me. I was polite and entertained a conversation with him. But soon this guy became too chatty, and I really just wanted to find my friend. So I started to make a look. (If you know me in real life, you know that I am terrible and hiding how I feel. My face says it all.) It was a look that said, Okay, I'm done talking to you. Why are you still talking to me? And who are you anyway?

Like I said, my face said it all. The guy quickly picked up on this and said, "I'm Brendon. I'm in your math class."

Feeling sorry for the guy, but certain he didn't know what he was talking about, I said, "Nooo. You're definitely not in my math class."

"Wilkes? First period?"

Stunned. "Hm. Well, yes, I am in that class, but you're definitely not in it."

Brendon was feeling confident. "I am in your math class... I sit right behind you."

And you can imagine that I was now feeling really awkward and squirmish. "Nooo. You definitely don't. {So-and-so} sits behind me."

Brendon just looked puzzled. "Don't you sit next to Rachel?"

Suddenly it clicked. And I got fired up. "Ohmygoodness! You think I'm Blakely." (Note: Blakely has been one of my best friends since we were 8 years old, and when we were young, people would get us mixed up.)

Now Brendon was really confused. "Well, who are you?"

"I'm Ashleigh!"

"Oh."

More of our story to come.

Flying Like a Helicopter... and Drooling

2011-06-25T15:11:00.000-05:00

This is from a month ago. But I can't believe I forgot to post! So funny!

Fear

2011-06-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me recently that I sure do spend a whole lot of time being fearful. I had never noticed it either. It's something my counselor pointed out to me - leave it to those counselors!

But at times, I'm struck with paralysis. I want to say something to a loved one about how an event or statement affected me, about my feelings, but I stop myself. If I say that to that person, they might feel {insert emotion}. I have this problem of taking on other people's emotions. AKA codependency. If I say something and someone feels a certain way in response to what I said, I feel immediately at fault. But something I'm learning - I am not responsible for the way someone else feels. Period.

Another scenario: Something I know to be wrong is unfolding right before my eyes and I sit there dumbstruck, thinking, What do I do? It'd be too awkward to {insert action or words here}. That should be cue. >Fear alert!< Back away from that thought and strongly consider saying what you are fight to or not to say.

I share this because it occurred to me that this struggle with fear is something the Lord talks about consistently in Scripture. Both in the Old Testament and the New. So apparently I'm not the only one struggling with this. And Scripture is very clear that we are only to fear the Lord, that fearing anything else is not honoring to Him. And this fear is certainly not from Him.

I found countless places in Scripture that commanded us to fear the Lord. And countless passages also stating, "Do not be afraid, for I [God] am with you." Sounds like another commandment to me.

What really got me though was this next passage:

1 John 4:17-19 (NIV)

¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

Wouldn't Ya Know?

2011-06-23T12:01:00.001-05:00

Because after 6 months, I STILL could not wear my wedding ring, Brendon got me this pretty ring to wear in the meantime!

I LOVE it! I love that it's simple yet has a wedding ring feel to it. I wore it proudly for five whole days... until yesterday, when my new ring started to feel a little loose. I know what you're thinking, "You must be joking, right?" Nope. Not kidding.

Funny that after 6 months, my wedding ring now fits. And overnight too. Is it bad that I am wishing I could fit into my new ring, rather than my actual wedding ring? Hmm...

At least I'm prepared for pregnancy (and post-pregnancy) #2...

Photo Shoot

2011-06-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed the new photos around my blog. That's because we had a photo shoot this past weekend! Brendon gave this photo shoot to me as my Mother's Day gift. And some of our friends, Steve and Kristen Gee, took the photos for us. I think they did an awesome job! Here are some of the photos. Can't wait to order prints and frame a few...

Love, love, love these photos!

If you're in the Dallas area and want photos taken, check out the Gees' website, Good Afternoon Photography.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

We were privileged to have both of our dads in town for the day today! They flew up just for a few hours - came to church with us, went to lunch, and then hung out, before heading back to the airport for Houston to spend time with our siblings.

To our dads -

Thanks so much for coming up! We love you both and are so blessed to have you in our lives!

And to my hubby -

Happy first Father's Day! I'm so thankful to be married to you and to now have embarked on this parenting adventure with you! Thank you for being so supportive. Lil is lucky to have you as a father. I know you will be just as sweet, caring, and patient with her as you are with me. We are two lucky ladies!

Lil Swimming!

2011-06-17T20:43:00.001-05:00

I forgot to share photos for Lil going swimming! She's been a couple times now. She doesn't seem to mind the water, but she doesn't splash around in it either. Still warming up!

We are starting swim lessons on Tuesday. Of course, they aren't really swim lessons at this age. They're more just to help her become comfortable in the water and learn to float on her back! How cool is that?

Lastly...

Fat baby in a little swim shirt...

Okay but really, this shirt is supposedly 12.5-18 lbs. She's 14 lbs. I'm thinking this brand runs seriously small.

Pouring Out the Wine

2011-06-15T08:08:00.001-05:00

Sunday night Hubs and I did this.

This is what was left.

Five empty wine bottles.

I'm tired of alcohol ruining the lives of wonderful, well-meaning people. Of believers even. I'm tired of it ruining their families' lives too.

On Sunday night, my husband and I decided we had enough. I boxed up our wine glasses. Then we took the rest of our wine stash and dumped it. I'm sure our friends would have loved to have these bottles, but for this one night, I didn't care about "being resourceful, not wasteful." I just wanted to take a stand against alcohol. Our house is now a dry house.

This doesn't mean we won't have a drink at a wedding or family event. It just means that we will no longer keep alcohol in our home. After what I have seen with my brother and good friends, I don't want my family, my child, or even myself to be around alcohol. I don't want our friends to have access to it when they come over. We're through.

Mommy Lessons - Month 4

2011-06-14T19:52:00.001-05:00

The first post of Mommy Lessons that I did got such a good response that I thought I'd do another! So here it is - from the first four months!

Babies progressively drool more and more as they get closer to getting their teeth in! Around 2 months, Lil started drooling. At 3 months, I'd say she drooled a lot. Last week I said she drooled much more than at 3 months. Today she has drooled much more than last week. Her shirt is soaked. It's our 3rd outfit. No idea when those teeth will appear - could be tomorrow, could be two months. Who knows.
Bibs are a must. Like I said, drool-central.
Spit up and drool are directly related. As drooling increases and teething approaches, spit up also increases! That's my experience at least.
While we're talking about teething, let me mention this: teething diaper rash. Apparently not every baby gets it. It might be because she's drooling so much. It might be because her hands are constantly in her mouth and she's touched something germy. Whatever it is, her poop is ACIDIC! I've talked to other moms who have experienced this. (And those who haven't.) But if babies sit in this acidic poop for too long, they get sores on their bum. Not good. Lil got these about two months ago. It was awful. She woke up in the middle of the night crying, so I put her in a disposable diaper and COVERED her bottom in ointment. It took a week to go away! Today she ~~woke up from nap~~ never went to sleep for nap because of this same issue. Not good. It's heartbreaking.
That whole rolling over at four months thing only happens (usually) if you're good about tummy time. So don't fret. Lil has rolled once. It was most likely an accident. To help her, I prop her arms up underneath her when she's on her tummy. This helps give her the idea that she doesn't have to be lying down with her face in her mat. She is happier because she can look around. And surely soon she'll realize she can flip herself.
That bald spot on the back of your baby's head? All babies get it. It's called "the good baby bald spot." It means they're content to lie on their back and chill. Now the content part may not be true because like I said, all babies get it!
Trimming a baby's fingernails with your teeth is the easiest and safest way to trim their baby nails. Since their nails are like tissue paper, it's pretty effortless.
Cloth diapers are so not a big deal. More on cloth diapering here.
A dark nursery enhances baby's sleep. Blinds, check. Curtains, check.
Tired of feeling that baby weight? Two words for you: Jumping Jacks. A friend of mine told me she does 500 a day, and that's why she thinks she lost her baby weight so quickly. Well, I haven't found time to get to 500 a day. But I've made it to 250. I do them 50 at a time. I actually need to get back in the groove of my jumping jacks. Our recent travels threw me off.
Baby weight does come off. I was beginning to doubt. But I'm making progress!
Kisses on Lilleigh's neck and checks gets Mommy big smiles and lots of giggles!
Read, read, read! Babies may not understand your exact words, but they are listening. Their little brains are like sponges, absorbing more and more each day. It was two days after we started reading The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name to Lilleigh that she started "talking." This book, unlike many books geared towards babies, actually has a story line for her to track with. We read other books as well, but this was our first one to start reading.
Daddies need to have their special time with the baby too. My hubby took to storytime with Lilleigh. She loves having him read to her. I think she loves his deep voice. Plus she doesn't get distracted knowing there's food around...
Babies have a lot of STUFF. Period.
Always have a spare outfit in the diaper bag. Wondering why? Read this post.
A baby does in fact mean there will be less time for your dog. It just does. I was a skeptic. I thought nothing could ever come between Sammy and me. Then came Lilleigh. It doesn't mean I don't love my dog. I'm convinced she's the best dog in the entire world. I still try to walk her daily (though the Texas heat is kinda killing that...) and give her lots of pets and treats. But I can tell she feels neglected. Thankfully she's super sweet with Lilleigh, which makes my life a lot easier.
Having two blogs and a baby is a little much. Not sure what I'm going to do when baby #2 comes along. This blog thing has been a constant battle in my mind. Of course, this blog isn't going anywhere. And the baby definitely isn't going anywhere!!! But Thankfully Thrifty is a little time-consuming... I'm NOT calling it quits! I love blogging and my deals and money-saving ways too much. But if you have any ideas on how to balance life as a mommy and blogging, be my guest... please tell me!
There's not one "right way" to do things. Really. I've been brought up to know right from wrong, black from white. No gray. But parenting is different. Okay so there are clearly some wrong ways to do things! I won't go there. Surely you know what I mean. But there are lots of RIGHT ways to do things. Lots. And what's right for one parent, family, or child is not always right for the next. So I'm learning to keep my mouth shut. Decide what is best for you, your family, and your baby. Then do it.
Every day gets better. Every stage is more fun than the last. Have fun with it.

Your turn. What have your babe(s) taught you?

Swing to Crib Transition

2011-06-13T21:05:00.000-05:00

I've been asked about our swing to crib naptime transition. I wish I could say more, but here's what I got.

First of all, I really think this was all just good timing. Lilleigh was totally ready for the transition. Around 2 months, I tried to transition her from her swing to crib, and that was a major failure. I had it set in my mind for some reason that she needed to be in her crib, that I was setting myself up for doom if I let her nap in her swing. There was really no logic in that thought. Finally I posted a plea for help on the transition on Facebook and a mom friend commented that she let her babies nap in their swings too and eventually they transitioned themselves to their cribs for nap. She said it was just no big deal. So since Lilleigh was napping well, I gave it a rest.

It was silly for me to even try at two months because for the first three months of her life Lilleigh would take three hour long naps in her swing. Sometimes four. No, I'm not kidding. But somewhere just after three months, she started waking up from swing naps at around two hours... sometimes even one hour. That mom was right! Still in that past month I had experimented with getting her to nap in her crib, and best case scenario would be 45 minutes... worst case, 20. Ugh. But for her first morning nap of the day, sometimes she could sleep for as long as an hour in her crib - I think because it followed a full night of sleep, a feeding, and only brief activity. So for awhile I just tried to be intentional about having her take this first nap of the day in her crib. No bouncy chair. No outing. Just naptime. In her crib.

Then I began experimenting more with her taking a daytime nap in her crib. And sometimes it would fail, meaning half an hour or less. This actually probably happened a handful of times. I didn't sweat it. I just put her in her swing for the next nap of the day so that she would at least get one good lengthy nap - and I would get one good length of time to get stuff done!

Eventually she got better at napping in her crib and to the point that her naps in her crib were just as long as her dwindling naptimes in her swing. So I've actually gotten to the point that I no longer use her swing. Just her crib.

I don't want her to be too dependent on her crib though, simply because I want her to be able to sleep in her stroller, car seat, etc when we are out and about. There's not a great way to ensure this except being really active. I'd say I'm moderately active. We definitely go out, have baby playdates, go to lunch with mommy's friends, run errands, etc, but I'm intentional about not overbooking us. We have one, maybe two, outings a day.

Speaking of sleep, something else noteworthy - Hubby finally got curtain rods hung up in the nursery for me. And Lilleigh actually slept until 7 AM this morning! A nice break for Mom, since Lil had been getting up at 5:45 or 6. I think the curtains block out a little more light! Nice.

No bottles here!

2011-06-11T06:46:00.000-05:00

Okay so that statement isn't exactly true. There are bottles here. Lots of bottles. More than we know what to do with. I have tried essentially every type of bottle that claimed to be the "miracle bottle." My baby girl doesn't want any of them. I have tried them all multiple times. Multiple times in a day. Many days a week. I've had my husband try without me in the house. My moms and mother-in-law have all tried. My neighbors and friends have tried. Lilleigh doesn't want anything to do with a bottle.

Lilleigh didn't always do this. She DID take a bottle. We began giving her a bottle right around 4 weeks, when the lactation consultants suggest you introduce it. I thought we were doing everything right. She took it, which was awesome. But we weren't consistent. We didn't realize we weren't consistent though because I'd leave and leave a bottle with the person watching her. I guess I didn't realize that many of these times she didn't end up needing the bottle. Still, some experts say that this shouldn't matter, that the frequency of the bottle (once a week versus every other day or more) shouldn't matter, that some babies will stop taking a bottle no matter how often they were given it.

Sometimes I get the feeling people don't believe me. They start giving me advice - "Just do... [a, b, and c]... then she'll take it. It worked for my baby." I tell them I've tried that and that it didn't work. They give me a sympathetic look, but I know they think I'm doing something wrong, that I'm just not trying hard enough.

My friend Randi watched Lilleigh a few weeks ago to give my husband and I a date. (Sweet friend, I know.) I left her with a bottle and told her to be my guest, to please prove me wrong and get her to take a bottle. She confidently told me it wouldn't be a problem, that they'd get it. She's a mom, so I knew if anyone could get her to take that bottle, it'd be Randi. When we left, I really hoped that she'd prove me wrong, that Lilleigh would suck down that bottle with no complaints. But sure enough, when we got back, the bottle was still full and Lilleigh was hungry.

This has happened multiple times with multiple people. Typically the story is that she got hungry and was crying, so they offered her the bottle, which then made her angry and fuss more. But once they took the bottle away, she settled down and stopped acting hungry. It's as if she says, "No problem. I'll wait." At least she has a good attitude about it.

She won't suck on her toys or any pacifiers either. She'll suck on her fingers, burp cloths, loveys - anything human or soft. But today she actually sorta sucked (one suck) on her Wubbanub. She held the soft animal in her hands and then chewed on its limbs. I'm hopeful. Maybe playing with that long enough will get her sucking the paci part... and then just maybe she'll take a bottle!

A friend of mine has a baby who did the same thing and just recently (at 5 months old!) decided to take a bottle. She says she thinks it must have just been a phase. I'm hopeful!

4 Months!

2011-06-10T22:38:00.001-05:00

Lilleigh is 4 months! And as of 4 months, Lilleigh...

Has been on 8 airplanes and been to 4 different states - Texas (duh!), Colorado, Arizona (airport - brief layover), and California. And she's done really well on every plane ride, being careful not to disturb the other passengers. This was her intent I'm sure...
Laughs A LOT! She loves it when I give her lots of kisses! She also likes it when I pretend to eat her hands.
Rolled over... once. I prop her arms up underneath her to help her lift herself up and give her the idea that being on her tummy isn't so bad. And one time she actually held herself up for a couple second and then rolled over. She hasn't done it since, but once is enough!
Grown lots of hair! You may not see it. But I see it! After she lost her hair, I was so distraught. I'm thrilled that she's getting hair back! It's pretty light (dirty blonde, I'd say), so it's sometimes hard to see. But it's there!
Gone back and forth between sleeping through the night and waking up at 4 AM. Still, one quick wake up at 4 AM isn't bad. I'll take it.
Wears size 3-6 month (and just plain 6 month) clothes.
Went from a size 1 to a size 2 diaper. And in her cloth diapers, we moved up a snap.
Swam for the first time.
Continues to "talk" up a storm!
Started pulling Mommy's hair - hard. Ow.
Become more efficient at nursing. She still likes to take her time sometimes, but she can be quick now.

In just the past couple weeks, we have started using the exersaucer, and she loves it!

Baby Weight Update!

2011-06-10T21:46:00.001-05:00

My update isn't exactly about my "weight loss." Since I did my happy dance two weeks ago, I have not lost any weight. Not according to the scale anyway. I still have 12 lbs to go. Buuuut.... I can now wear my pre-pregnancy jeans! It's been almost exactly 4 months since having Lilleigh (4 month update to come), and I admit that I was starting to think this moment would never come. But it did! Just like people said it would.

I actually had just recently decided I was going to return the Gap 1969 jeans that I got for free in the fall. I figured I'd get a pair of in-between jeans. So I tried them on before going to the mall - just to give myself a ballpark size that I should start trying jeans on in. And voila! They fit over my thighs... and then my butt... and then they zipped! I couldn't believe it!

So no, I have not lost any more weight. But my old jeans magically fit again! Yea! Those 12 lbs will come off. I'm not worried. I'm just thrilled to have pants that fit again! I guess those jumping jacks are paying off!!

California!

2011-06-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking... Traveling AGAIN! What are they thinking doing so much traveling with an infant? I had this same thought last Thursday morning before we boarded our plane - well, planeS - to San Diego. We've done more traveling in the last month than we've done in the past year... maybe two! Lilleigh is only four months only, but she has been on EIGHT planes!

The occasion for such insanity? One of my good friends from college got married! In Irvine. That's reason enough to go. But it helps that Hubby's aunt and uncle also live in San Diego. Plus we had air miles my dad had gifted us a couple Christmases ago. ...All the signs were pointing to GO! So we went. And we had a blast!

After the lack of naps (and thus, down time for Mommy) on our last trip, I was a little worried for this one. So in preparation for California, and after learning from our Colorado trip, I gave Lilleigh plenty of practice napping in her crib! She's been used to napping in her swing. (When a baby takes 3 - sometimes 4 - hour long naps in their swing, you let them swing!) It was actually convenient timing because pretty soon after our return from Colorado, Lil actually stopped napping as long in her swing and started actually sleeping for around an hour per nap in her crib, as opposed to 20 minutes, which is what she had been doing. So the transition was pretty natural. And now she'll actually nap for a couple of hours (if I'm lucky) in her crib! But I digress... my point was that I was preparing her for California by having her nap in her crib. And it paid off! She napped well while in Cali!

Not only did my baby nap well, but she slept well! I fed her each afternoon at 4 PM and put her in bed at 5 PM... crazy, right? I didn't bother changing her from Texas time. That just seemed unnecessary to me. I was prepared to get up with her at 4 AM to feed her and then try put her down again to get her to sleep until at least 5:30 AM. But guess what? My babe slept until 6:45 AM Cali time! That's 8:45 AM Texas time!! Yes, that's a whopping 14 hours of sleep! Has she done this since we returned? No. But now that I know she can, I just added "Hang dark curtains in Lilleigh's room" on my Honey Do list!

Needless to say, Lilleigh sleeping well greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the trip! We met up with friends, spent time with Brendon's aunt, uncle, and cousin, hung out on the beach, and attended the wedding. And a noteworthy mention - Lilleigh had quite the blow out! Blow out aside, if California wasn't so gosh darn expensive, I'd totally move there! Brendon's aunt and uncle practically have an orchard in their backyard! Oranges, cuties, lemons, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. I want that. I am already planning our next trip to Cali!

Photos of our trip...

Us with the bride and groom at the beach party on Thursday night

Lil's first time at the beach

Lilleigh got to meet my sweet friend Courtney!

Kiss sandwich!

Lilleigh's first "dip" in the ocean. Funny that it was the Pacific and not the Gulf...

Uncle Al found part of a lobster.

Us with the Dudley at the wedding

The Phelpses' first dance

As you can see, we had an awesome time in California! But I am glad to be home. I'm exhausted! While this trip was a success, I am happy to say that it's our last big trip for awhile. I'm looking forward to a summer at home!

God Gave Us the Earth.

2011-05-30T17:21:00.001-05:00

I've never been a green-freak. I try to take care of the earth because it's God's creation, but to be honest, I've never made this a priority. Much of the time my environmentally-friendly actions have actually been financial choices. For example, my dad bought me a car for college graduation (about a year late), and with gas prices as crazy as they were, I chose a Prius. 50 mpg? Yes, please. That's a huge financial savings! And if it helped the environment, that was just a bonus. Cloth diapers... a savings of $60-120 per month, depending in the deals. Again, yes! Yes, yes, yes! Not filling landfills? Again, just an added bonus.

Then on Sunday my pastor talked about this verse:

¹⁶ The highest heavens belong to the LORD,

but the earth he has given to mankind. (Psalm 115:16)

I do think of the earth as God's creation, so this wasn't a new revelation. But as this Psalm says, He put us - me - in charge of this earth. And what am I doing to help it? To be honest, I couldn't think of a whole lot. As I already said, the Prius and cloth diapering were financially-motivated decisions. While being a good steward with the money God has given us can be a godly motivation, it shouldn't be my only motivation. Taking care of His creation is just as much a calling.

While I do recycle, often I throw mail away in the trash, rather than recycling, simply because it's the easy thing to do. The recycling just seems too far away. But I have no excuse. If I'm in charge of the earth, then recycling should be another way for me to serve the Lord.

Additionally, recently my husband and I have been trying to eat real food. This has been a source of some tension because while he wants to ensure we're as healthy as possible, I just want to save money. Srill, in some ways eating real food saves us a lot of money because I'm not grabbing chips, Oreos, or Dr Pepper when I'm at the store. But in other ways, it costs more. We've been buying farm-fresh eggs and raw milk. I won't go into detail in this post, but we feel this is the best thing for our family and our health, even if it does cost a little more. And this verse confirmed it for me. It gave me peace in my heart that we are doing the right thing and respecting the Lord's creation even if it means adding a little more the grocery budget.

Win this awesome "My Dad Rocks" iron-on for Father's Day!

2011-05-27T11:40:00.002-05:00

My Dad Rocks

Cloth Diaper Q&A - The Continuation

2011-05-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

I know many of you were excited about my cloth diaper blog post, The Truth About Cloth Diapers. I just wrote a follow up to it! Check it out on my other blog, Thankfully Thrifty.