Ebenezer

One year ago today we drove away from the shoebox and towards our new lives in Michigan. Here I raise an Ebenezer to God's faithfulness in our lives. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Let all that is within me praise His holy Name!

Great is Thy faithfulness O God, my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not.
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see!
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness Lord, unto me.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth.
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

Apple Picking!

Today Adeline and I went with our friends Kara and Hannah to Erwin Orchards here in South Lyon. We took a tractor ride out to the orchards to pick some Empire and Gala apples. When we came back we enjoyed some delicious doughnuts and cider slushies (Kara and Hannah had an apple cider slushie and Adeline and I shared a raspberry cider slushie - yum!). When we had our fill we fed the goats, took some silly pictures and climbed on the hay bales. What a fun morning. Thanks, Kara and Hannah, for such a good time!

Cookies!

Today I thought it would be a fun activity for Adeline and me to make and decorate cookies. Here are some pictures of the fun...

Adeline cutting out
her pumpkin cookies!

Evelyn helped too, of course

Decorating cookies is fun and easy
with the Decorator Bottle Set
from The Pampered Chef!
I showed Adeline how and she picked it up right away!

The finished product
(Mommie did some, too)

We had so much fun. Looking forward to more cookie-making adventures come the holidays!

Sunday School

Adeline officially attends a Sunday School class at church on Sunday mornings. Last week was the kickoff and this week was her second week of class. It is so crazy to bring home her crafts and lessons! What a big girl! She is given her own little bag to bring home her goodies each week and it always has a little packet in there for parents telling them about what their children learned in class today and how to help them explain to you what they learned. It also includes activities I can do with Adeline. It is so fun to help her learn Bible stories. Last week we talked about how Moses floated in a basket down the river - "Baby in the water!" as Adeline says. This week she came home with her pillar of cloud and fire (that's what she's holding in her hand in the picture). She loves her teachers: Mrs. Marsha and Mrs. Lisa. And she's already learned her memory verse for the month: "God cares about you!" (1 Peter 5:7). We look forward to Sunday School class every week :).

Potty Break

Normally we use this phrase to encourage Adeline to take a break from what she's doing to go potty. (We made up a catchy little tune for it, too, repeating the phrase several times.) Well, today it means a break from the potty instead of for the potty. Over the last week Adeline has been having a lot of accidents and it hasn't been a good experience for anyone involved (she'd been having lots of accidents anyway but I thought we were really making progress). Then last night at small group she had several nasty (#2) accidents in a row... then this morning she just peed all over the bathroom floor... :(. I'm confident that this is more than just regression. All this to say, I'm pretty sure the novelty of the potty that made it exciting in the beginning has now faded, and things have not been going so well. Today we put away the underwear and pulled out the diapers again. I thought she might complain or be sad to feel like a baby again, but nope! She actually seemed a lot happier. I won't lie - I am disappointed that the first take didn't take. But clearly it's just not her time. We'll try again in a couple of months. In the meantime, I'm going to have her keep her diapers, wipes and change of clothes in her little backpack for her to carry around as her diaper bag. I think she'll actually kind of like it :).

Thanks for all the PT advice over the course of our month-long adventure. We'll let you know when we pick things up again.

Fort!

Today Daddy had to spend the day in Flint taking the MMPI (ordination process). Without a car for the day we had to be pretty creative with our adventures! So in the morning Adeline helped me make a fort. We brought in pillows and sat inside and watched Cars on the portable DVD player. It was pretty fun!


For lunch we took a walk to Wendy's which happens to be just down the street. It was a fun little day :).

"New" Bed

I've noticed ever since we moved here last October that Adeline's crib hasn't really felt the same. I'm not sure that you're supposed to purchase a second-hand crib and then move it six times in one year(!). I determined while putting her down for a snooze the other day that maybe it was time to pursue turning it into a toddler bed. I'd been putting it off for a few days because I didn't feel like looking up the instructions to figure out how to do it. Then it occurred to me that all I had to do was remove the dropside! (Which also happened to be the weakest part of the crib, I thought.) So I removed it and... Voila! Adeline's "new" bed.


She fell out once in the middle of the night her first night in, but has been just fine since then. What a big girl! And let me tell you it's nice for Mommie, too, that I don't have to lift her over the railing anymore :).

Party!

Today was Adeline's friend Hannah's 2nd Birthday Celebration! We went to Huron Meadows Metropark. Adeline had her first taste of a Capri Sun...


She played ball with the big kids...


And decorated her own cupcakes! If you look closely you can see she also very much enjoyed eating her cupcake, too!


Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Firsts

Today Evelyn had two new firsts. She tried out the jumperoo (with big sister's help, of course)...



And had her first tastes of oatmeal! (with big sister's help of course :)....


As you can see she took to both quite well.

O Waly Waly

In honor of Evelyn's four month milestone, I wrote a new song for her, to the tune of O Waly Waly (aka "The Water is Wide", aka "The Gift of Love"):

My Evelyn, I love you so
You're beautiful
I hope you know
How much your Mom and Dad love you
You are so special,
Evelyn Ruth

Evelyn is going to be baptized on October 11th (different from the original plan of November 22nd). If you're around or are able to make a trip, we'd love to see you here to celebrate with us.

Four-month Doctor Visit

Today was Evelyn's 4-month doctor appointment. We found out...

• She is 24" long - 30%
• Her head is 15.8" around - 20%
• She weighs 10 lbs. 7 oz. - 1%!!
  

The doctor expressed some concern with Evelyn's weight plateau. She's only gained 7 ounces in the last two months bringing her down to the first percentile from the 21st. We talked about her eating habits, etc. Then, once I started to explain a little more about Evelyn's daily activities, it made more sense to the pediatrician. Evelyn already rolls from front to back AND back to front. She is able to push her chest up completely off the floor. She sits with some support. She holds her head upright and still, focusing on objects in front of and around her. She is also able to bring her knees up under her occasionally while squirming on the floor, and tries to push off with her feet. She also puts her weight on her legs for moments at a time when being held upright. Once I described this, the doctor told me that it was no wonder she's no longer sleeping through the night, wanting to eat all the time and has gone down 20 percentiles - she has the gross motor skills of a 6-month-old! She's burning a lot more calories than your average 4-month old. Trying to keep up with big sister already, I imagine. When I first heard Evelyn's stats I was worried the doctor was going to give me a lecture or make me start feeding her formula. I was thrilled when she said, "Time for solids!" I can't believe my baby is already ready for cereal. I was really hoping this would come much later (around 6 months), but Evelyn's metabolism just won't let it wait. The doctor would still like to see her for a 5-month weight check, which works out fine because we have to go back then anyway to get the DTaP vaccine which they didn't have in stock today.

My only other concern for Evelyn was that she seems to sweat a lot and often has clammy hands and feet. Of course none of those symptoms manifested themselves at the doctor's office - the only place symptoms never show up! Combined with the low weight I could tell this information sent up a little yellow flag for the pediatrician, so if the weight isn't following the new growth curve on the chart she'll have Evelyn's thyroid checked next month.

Today Evelyn also had two vaccines: Prevnar (pneumococcal; shot) and Rotateq (rotavirus; oral). She did such a good job. She cried for just a moment after her shot, quickly distracted by the little plastic purple dinosaur they gave her afterward :).

All in all it was actually some really nice mommie-baby time :).

Taking my Rotateq

My Purple Dinosaur

Chillin' with Dad... and my feet

Adeline & Mom

One year ago today...

we found out Evelyn was on her way. We didn't know she was "she". We didn't know that her name was Evelyn. We didn't know what her little face would look like or what her personality would be. It's amazing what just one year can bring.

and...

Happy 37th Anniversary to Mom & Dad! (aka Amma & Papa)

Labor Day Weekend - "Evelyn's in the moon"

This weekend Papa was in town again so we went over to Amma and Papa's for a brief weekend visit (had to be home for church on Sunday morning). We drove over Friday midday and made it in time for a little shopping trip - purple clothes for Evelyn (it's her color ;-) and loungewear for Adeline. We also wanted Adeline to be able to go out kayaking with Amma but had forgotten her floatie suit, so we went to Target and got a new floaty suit that will stay at Amma's, and some adorable purple water shoes. (She loves the shoes so much she's worn them every moment since then, including to church Sunday morning!)

Saturday morning we had Amma's signature waffles for breakfast - yum! Then Alan, Amma and Adeline went out kayaking.


The afternoon was reserved for the USC football game. Our game food was pizzas made on the grill! Really tasty. We stayed just long enough to enjoy this beautiful sunset over the pond:


On the drive home in the evening, Adeline, looking out for her baby sister, noticed that Evelyn's canopy wasn't over her in her car seat. Adeline said, "Evelyn's in the sun." We explained that it was dark outside, and when it's dark the sun isn't out, so it's okay if Evelyn's canopy is down. Then she saw the big, bright, low, orange harvest moon right in front of us through the windshield and said, "It's the sun!" We explained again that it's dark out...no sun, etc. That's the moon. Adeline said, "Oh. No sun." A few minutes later we hear Adeline's voice again, "Evelyn's in the moon." ;-)

Happy 4 Months, Evelyn!

September? Is it really September?? Unbelievable how the time flies! Evelyn Ruth is four months old today! Here are some pictures of my four-month-old baby beauty :).






Evelyn loves to hold and play with soft and colorful toys these days. She is quite good at rolling over from front to back - much to her own chagrin! She talks and sings and coos and laughs. And she loves, I mean absolutely adores her big sister! Evelyn could be really fussy, practically inconsolable and then she will spot or hear Adeline and an instant smile spreads across her entire face. She is a great sleeper. Today, after she woke up at 6:30am for breakfast, she slept till noon!! She loves to hold her hands in front of her and will often remove her plug to hold it and stare at it for various lengths of time. And any opportunity she has she will be completely folded in half with her feet at the top of her head, holding her legs snugly against herself. Evelyn continues to be a happy, healthy, beautiful joy to us. We go in for her 4-month well-baby check-up next Friday where we'll get official numbers, but according to my bathroom scale this morning she already weighs 11 lbs.! She still wears 3 months clothes but I'm starting to put her in 6 month things now too as she's somewhat in between sizes. It will be too warm on Saturday for her to sport her USC wear ;-), but rest assured she will be in it soon and there will be pictures!

Adeline continues to amaze Alan and me with the new things she says and does these days. This morning she insisted on Daddy letting her play the guitar, "like daddy." I wonder if we can get one her size...?? She loves the guitar.

She is the best big sister around. She loves to hold, sing to, play with and take care of Evelyn. She gets very upset if we forget to let her give her baby sister a good night kiss. Every day is full of singing, dancing, jumping, running around, talking, drinking from a regular cup "like mommie" and going potty on her own ;-).

Each milestone, no matter how big or small, causes me to pause and take in the wonders of my children and how much I love and adore them. What will the coming month bring, I wonder?