Thankful Thursdays

I have decided that every Thursday is going to be Thankful Thursdays.

We have been truly blessed this month with lots of hand me downs. We are thankful for our
new stove that my parents gave us when they got a newer one
new baby bows and magnets that the Wainrights gave us and didn't need anymore
new (for real new) awesome and fancy cloth diapers that the Lonnemans gave us! This was HUGE to us because now we will not need to buy anymore cloth diapers for Ruby or our future kids!

We were just talking last night how God provided all these things that we were needing/wanting without us even trying to find them. They really just fell in our laps!

What are you thankful for this week?

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It is so nice when little babies will sleep anywhere and everywhere. This is Ruby sleeping on my mom's shoulder at about 1 month. She has tiny little preemie clothes on here.

When all else fails...

This weekend we went to N. Kentucky to visit some friends and their new baby and sweet little 2 year old. Ruby decided to have her first restaurant meltdown while we were there. Her poor parents didn't know what to do and therefore she ended up with a pizza crust to chew on. We figured out eventually that she was teething and after some tylenol she was back to her old self.

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Ruby and I have made it a habit to go for walks several times a week. This is from February when it was pretty cold and Ruby was all bundled up for our daily walk.

Happy Girl

Happy Girl at 5 months. She still loves to smile!

Getting Organized

I have recently been on a mission to simplify our lives and get organized. We have a small shotgun house with too much stuff. I have found the following tools/resources/ideas to be helpful and thought I would share them:

-Selling stuff on ebay has gotten rid of some books

-Yard Sale! My friend Stephanie is having a yard sale to pay off her mission trip to Sudan and to raise money for her time doing Mission Year starting in September so, she is getting all my junk! I can't wait to cart it over to her house this week!

-Google calender has kept our family organized for about a year now. We put all our appointments on there and both Brian and I can check it and update it.

- momadvice.com has helped me with getting organized. I especially liked the article that she had on spring cleaning. One thing I learned from this website and have actually implemented is to get the dishes done everyday. We run the dishwasher at night and open it up before it hits the heat/dry cycle. This saves money and energy and in the morning our dishes are dry and ready to go.

- A new one that I tried out today was rememberthemilk.com. This is for all of you list making people (like me). You can sign up for free and make lists and then sync it to your google calender. So, when I check my google calender I can see up in the corner what I have on my list that needs to be done today. There are lots of other handy options on this site but I haven't figured them out yet.

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Our Little Munchkin

The above picture is the cover of a book that was written by some people at our church (Sojourn Community Church). This is from the preface: “Pastor Daddy was written to teach preschool children the Christian doctrine of the home as a “little church” where the father teaches his family God’s commands and leads them to worship the one true God." It was written by Bobby Gilles and Lindsey Blair and was illustrated by Tessa Janes. We are so excited to share this book with Ruby as she grows.

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I am sure I will say this many more times but, I love this picture! I think Ruby looks like a little munchkin from the Wizard of Oz here. She is 2 weeks old and is in one of 3 outfits that fit her at the time.

Lights and Letters

This weekend we went to a birthday party for 2 of our friends 1 year olds. They asked that we not bring gifts but rather bring something that represented our family (for a time capsule) or a prayer for each of their children. While I was thinking of what I write I pulled out a book that my mom gave me after Ruby was born (that I had never opened) called "Letters to Baby" by Chaz Corzine. The author asked people to write letters to newborns. Here is one that I really liked by Rich Mullins:

Dear Baby,
This place is a mess, but help yourself to whatever good you find. Everyone wishes we could have gotten everything cleaner and safer for you--though a good many of us are beginning to suspect that much of the mess and danger you face is in those very wishes. So, take with a grain of salt all of those anxieties and ambitions we'll doubtless project onto you. And do us the favor of looking at us with your perfectly blank stare so we can see what we look like to someone whose sight is empowered by purity, not impaired by experience. Your stay here, like all of ours, is so brief. Make the most of your time, and try to put things back at least as nicely as you found them.

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The "look back" photo for today is from when Ruby was under the lights to get rid of jaundice. She was in the lights on and off for the first 2 weeks of her life. We really didn't like her being in there and neither did she. We didn't feel comfortable sleeping while she was in her little "suitcase" so we took turns staying awake. Brian stayed up most of the night reading to Ruby, playing video games, and playing Rich Mullins songs for her. Brian doesn't like to think back to when she was under the lights but I remember the intentional bonding that took place between a loving Daddy and his baby girl.

Countdown to 1 year

Ruby is turning 1 in a little over a month. I loved what my friend Sarah did on her blog by taking a look back at her daughters 1st year. So, this month you will be enjoying or enduring a new mother reminiscing about her daughter's first year.

In the above picture Ruby is 2 days old and just got to her new home. She was 4 pounds 10 oz when we brought her home. I can't believe they let us take such a tiny baby out of the hospital. We had to keep her wrapped up in 2 blankets and 2 hats because she didn't have enough fat to keep her body temperature up (remember she was 4.5 weeks early). Although I was pretty tired I remember this day well. It took us awhile to pack Ruby in her car seat because we didn't really know how to work it and she was actually under the weight limit for the seat. This was the day that she met her Grandpa and Grandma Laffin too.