5 Months

Five months of changing diapers

Five months of interrupted sleep

Five months of drying tears

Five months of soothing cries

Five months of being puked on, peed on, drooled on, slept on

Five months of doubled laundry loads
Five months of new discoveries almost daily
Five months of sweet smiles and coos
Five months of snuggles
Five months of enjoying tremendous growth
Five months of excitement and laughter
Five months of double the amount of love
Five months as Mommy!
Five months God has given you to me so far.  I am so blessed!  Happy 5 months little one!  I love you so. 

One day old!

Almost 5 Months!

Sitting up so well

So excited about the new toys Mommy's buying for you

You fell asleep at a friend's house, and I put you in a laundry basket to keep you out of the way of their dog, so you wouldn't get stepped on accidentally. 



A Proper Heart

True obedience and submission both require that the heart attitude be right.  I'm working on this.  Sometimes it's incredibly hard.  I'm willing to do what is right, what is set before me to do, those tasks that God has given me.  However, if my heart isn't right, if I'm grumbling about what I've been asked to do, I'm not truly being obedient or submissive.  I've recently been reminded that I need to work on this.  *sigh  It's not easy!

Reality Check!

I logged on to Facebook this morning to post a whiny "poor me" status because my wonderful husband was working and it's a Saturday!  Granted, this is nothing new.  He's been working Saturdays for over a year now, so I should be used to it.  Anyway, I logged on to Facebook, and read through all of the new posts on my homepage.  I have a few friends who are military wives, and some of them had posted about the struggles of their husbands being on deployment. 

Well, that caused me to think twice about my whiny status.  I was reminded that I am very blessed that my husband has a job, that he gets to come home at the end of his shift, and that he gets 3-4 days off each week that we can spend just hanging out doing things as a family.  I have no idea what it's like to not have him home for months on end, and be worried for his life.  Saturdays all of a sudden don't seem so bad.

Thank you all of you who are in the military, and are married to military!  You have sacrificed more than I can know, and I am so grateful for your sacrifices for our country! 

Tried, Convicted, and Sentenced

Something happened last week to make me pause and think about my stand on some issues.  Without going into details of what happened, I'll give you the conclusions I came to. 

  If I am not witness to a conflict, I cannot make a judgement as to what happened.  Even if I hear both sides of the story after the fact, there may be missing information, skewed perspectives, misrepresentation of the facts, or any number of other problems making it hard to tell what actually occurred.  All I can say, is that as a Christian, I cannot allow someone's opinion to color how I treat people.  I am supposed to treat each person that comes across my path with kindness.  No matter what. 

  I think all too often I've found myself hearing about one friend's conflict with another mutual friend, and wanting to be judge and jury, convicting (the other friend), and sentencing them (to a little bit of cold shoulder).  For example, I'm told that Friend A is upset with Friend B because of x, y, and z.  I then find myself getting upset with Friend B, and wanting to be a little more distant with them because of it.  That's not the proper response!  The proper response - the response I will now actively be trying to have - is to continue to treat Friend A and Friend B with love and friendship like I always have. 

I Can't Think of a Title...

I really enjoy making a nice meal for my sweet husband.  It's especially nice when I can make something that looks nice as well as tasting good.  That was my plan tonight...I have a recipe for a fantastic chicken dish, that I haven't made for a while.

 I got started in plenty of time, got the chicken coated, the pan heated, the butter melted, put the chicken in the pan, picked up the cranky baby, transfered him to his highchair - where he's a little happier - turned the chicken, and noticed it was a little darker than normal.  Thought it would be okay, so cooked it the rest of the way, while putting water on to boil for some egg noodles.  The chicken was done, so I pulled it out of the pan - now second guessing how good it would be with how dark it was.  I added my noodles to the now-boiling water, measured my cream for the sauce - after tasting it to make sure it was still sweet (plus, I find I'm really fond of that little taste of pure cream!) - poured it into the pan so it could gather all the nice (burnt?) flavor from the chicken.  It looked pretty close to the right color, just a smidgen darker, so I tasted it.  It tasted just a tad different than normal, but not burnt, so it should be okay.  I put some green beans in the microwave, stirred the sauce till it was thick, added the rest of the butter to finish the sauce, it looked almost perfect! 

At that moment my sweetie got home, so I threw the colander into the sink so I could drain my noodles, drained the noodles, grabbed the pan with my sauce in it, put it on the table (on a trivet), picked up my little guy out of his highchair, turned off all the burners, and went to greet my hardworking man.  He came in, hugged me and the baby, dropped off his water jug on the dining room table, then went out to get the mail.  I went back to finishing my dinner preparations (just the dishing out of all the seperate items), and noticed the sauce had broken.  (Instead of being a creamy sauce, there were basically grainy bits of flavor swimming in oil)  Now, all this time, my sinuses had been getting more and more troublesome, and this was just the last straw.  The chicken was burnt (I could see that clearly now, no optimism left), the sauce was broken, and my head hurt!  I took the pan to the door so I could show my sweetie.  I showed him, and cried.  At least the noodles were done right! 

He thanked me for working hard to make him a nice meal, got me some pain killers for my terrible headache and ordered pizza.  I truly am blessed! 

Baby Wipes

I make my own baby wipes.  My mom used to do this when my siblings were younger, and she still needed wipes.  I've discovered it saves quite a bit of money, and works just as well as the wipes you can buy in the store.  To give you an example, I buy Bounty paper towels, the 'select a size' version, in a huge pack from Sam's Club.  I get 12 rolls, or 1848 sheets, for $18.48.  I then buy the Parent's Choice baby wash from Wal-mart, I get 15 oz for $2.00.  Each batch of wipes costs me approximately $1.79 for 154 wipes.  For comparison, you can get:

640 Pampers wipes for $19.88,

720 MembersMark wipes for $13.28

720 Huggies wipes for $15.48

1232 My wipes for $14.32, or, for comparable numbers,

770 my wipes for $8.95

I figure for a few minutes effort, I'm getting almost twice the amount of wipes for the same amount of money.  It's certainly worth it to me!  Here's the process. 

I gather my supplies.  One roll of paper towels, my baby wash, and my Rubbermaid container.

I add 3 cups of water to the Rubbermaid container

Mix in 1/4 cup baby wash

Add the paper towels to the mixture

Since the roll is slightly taller than my container, I smoosh them down in a little

Close the lid

Then turn the whole thing upside down to let the soapy solution soak through the whole roll

Once all the water has been absorbed, simply pull out the (now soggy) cardboard tube

Pull the end out of the middle far enough to easily find it when needed. 

And you have a roll full of perfectly sized baby wipes for a fraction of the cost of the premade ones. 

Another super bonus to this, is that with all of the scents of baby wash out there, you can have almost any scent you'd like for your baby wipes!  

Salt & Pepper

Yesterday I showed you my new springtime salt and pepper shakers.  What I failed to mention was that I now have a set for each season, as well as for valentine's day and Easter!  :D  It's a fun, easy way to decorate (along with my seasonal m&m's, but that's a different post!).

These stay on my stovetop year round to season my cooking.

Valentine's Day

Easter

Summertime!

Fall



And Christmastime/Winter.

I may try to find just a couple more sets, (maybe snowflakes for winter, keeping the holly for Christmas, maybe some shamrocks for St Patricks, etc. )  but for now, I'm good!  :D

Pictures! May 1 & 2

I actually remembered to take pictures yesterday and today!  So, without further ado, pictures!

We went shopping on Saturday, I had a couple of things in mind that I wanted to get.  My wonderful husband knew what I was looking for, and both items he actually found for me.  He said they made him think of me.  They're perfect!

Springtime salt and pepper shakers!

A glass cutting board

Then, today my little guy had his first taste of solid food.  Rice cereal.  He loved it!

He liked his first taste!

 

So, I made him some more!

And he couldn't get enough!

 I have quite a bit of belly left after having my son, so in my efforts to get rid of that, I am giving up sodas, and trying to tone up a bit. 


My new excercise equipment!

And that is all for today!  More tomorrow.