Eleven Months Old / Giving Thanks Challenge ~ {Day #8}

Thanksgiving Challenge ~ Day #8

Topic: Noelle
Title: Eleven Months Old

{If you are new to this challenge~which is not your typical Thanksgiving challenge, you can catch up on the details here, and please feel free to join along at any time...}

~Really, Mom?~

I can hardly believe that I just wrote the title, "Eleven Months Old."  Where has the time gone?  There have been so many days through these months that I have not dared to think beyond the next hour or the next day, let alone dream about reaching her first birthday; and yet, here we are celebrating eleven precious months with our little girl and entering the home stretch to her one year birthday.  I am overwhelmingly amazed at God's goodness to us and thank Him for each precious moment we have been given with this little girl.  She weighed 10 lbs. / 10 oz. today and continues to fight and grow, tiny though she still may be.  Happy Eleven Month Birthday, Noelle!!  We love you!!!

{Although she is still on oxygen 24/7, she is doing well enough for us to remove the cannula for short moments of time, such as snapping pictures. }

If you are local and would like to help a relief project for New Jersey this week, please check out this page and do what you can to assist this effort.  

***Do not forget there is only one week left to submit your entry for the book project for Noelle's birthday.  You can read about the project and the deadline by clicking here .  We are enjoying the submissions we have already received but would love to hear from you, if you are willing to participate.  Thank you so much for helping us make Noelle's first birthday a special time of remembrance!!***

Giving Thanks Challenge ~ {Day #7}

Thanksgiving Challenge ~ Day #7

Topic: Noelle
Title: Soft Tufts of Hair

{If you are new to this challenge~which is not your typical Thanksgiving challenge, you can catch up on the details here, and please feel free to join along at any time...}

This first week of the Thanksgiving challenge has been an encouragement to my heart, especially in the midst of a divided and hurting world around us.  So much has happened on a large scale this week as our country became the focus of the entire globe when tragedy struck through Hurricane Sandy and then again as our nation selected a leader for the next four years.   

~So Much Hair!~

We have been bombarded from all sides, through every avenue of social media; and although I am thankful to be informed, to have the ability to reach out and help in a small way, or to cast my vote and take a stand {regardless of the outcome}, I am especially grateful at times to escape from the chaos into my little corner of this world, my home, with the peace of Christ satisfying my heart and a sweet little bundle of grace filling my arms.  She is such a constant, physical evidence of God's grace and goodness to me; and I am glad to have the persistent reminder, especially when all is not right in the world around me.  As we cuddled this morning during her first bottle of the day, the sun streamed through the window, highlighting her soft, downy hair; and I suddenly realized where she is sending all of these calories I have been cramming into her!  She is growing out her hair, thicker and faster than I have ever before seen!  My favorite are the little new strands that stick straight up, not being long enough to lay flat just yet, and seen only when the light bounces and catches them at just the right angle.  One moment we are certain it is dark in hue; and then the light changes, revealing what appears to be a pretty, strawberry blonde.  So the final color is yet to be determined, but we are enjoying this phase of downy soft tufts of hair appearing almost daily across her little head.  In the midst of so much turmoil and struggle, I was thankful to take pleasure in something so simple and soft as brand new hair on the head of a sweet, growing baby.

~Smiles for Mommy~

If you are local and would like to help a relief project for New Jersey this week, please check out this page and do what you can to assist this effort.  

***Do not forget there is just over a week left to submit your entry for the book project for Noelle's birthday.  You can read about the project and the deadline by clicking here .  We are enjoying the submissions we have already received but would love to hear from you, if you are willing to participate.  Thank you so much for helping us make Noelle's first birthday a special time of remembrance!!***

Giving Thanks Challenge ~ {Day #6}

Thanksgiving Challenge ~ Day #6

Topic: Noelle
Title: Lock Down

{If you are new to this challenge~which is not your typical Thanksgiving challenge, you can catch up on the details here, and please feel free to join along at any time...}

We just recently completed our first month of lock down {explained here}; and I must say that it was not what I thought it might be.  I pictured long days and dedicated play time.  I imagined lots of extra snuggles and reading books together.  Of course a spotless home, a plethora of baking and cooking, time to write, and so much more was on the list as well.  Some of these things have happened, but usually not the way I dreamed or planned.  Cooking dinner is a regular occurrence {and a mostly enjoyable one after months in the hospital and weeks of "quick" cooking in between doctor appointments}; sweet snuggles happen often, although I can never have enough of those; and we certainly have more play time than ever before.  But in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and seeing the tragedy that so many have experienced, I am reminded even more to be grateful for this lock down period.  Many in that situation would love to trade places with me, to be required to stay in their home, to have the ability to cook dinner once again for their family, to wash loads of laundry, to scrub the toilet, to do the "mundane."  It will happen again.  They will move on and rebuild and create a new normal, but their lives will never be the same, both for bad and good; and the road to that new normal will be long and hard.  So today, as I am confined to my home with my sweet miracle baby, I am grateful for this mandatory period in our lives and the "mundane" that I so often take for granted and sometimes, ashamedly, even complain. I am thankful for the help I have received in the form of my mom picking up groceries and running errands.  I am excited my husband has a good job and is able to be in class, finishing his degree and endeavoring to provide well for us.  I am glad to still be allowed to vote via an absentee ballot.  And I am especially enjoying my opportunity to hold a precious little girl and have an "excuse" to be with her all day long.  Life could not be sweeter.

If you are local and would like to help a relief project for New Jersey this week, please check out this page and do what you can to assist this effort. 

***Do not forget there are less than two weeks left to submit your entry for the book project for Noelle's birthday.  You can read about the project and the deadline by clicking here .  We are enjoying the submissions we have already received but would love to hear from you, if you are willing to participate.  Thank you so much for helping us make Noelle's first birthday a special time of remembrance!!***