My Growing girl...

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of when I found out I was pregnant!  I still remember exactly how it felt to see the word "pregnant" on the test.  I kept staring at it waiting for the little "not" to pop up next to it, because I didn't believe I was actually pregnant, but lo and behold, there was a baby inside me!  There was such an instant connection with this little being in there, it was kind of amazing.

And now, a whole year later, I can praise God for the many blessings he's poured on our family and the many ways our lives have changed!  I praise God for allowing us the special job of helping Him raise this beautiful, sweet baby girl!

And, one week from today that baby girl will be a full four months old.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  Looking back over pictures of her, I realize just how much she's grown.  And, she's starting to get such a fun, sweet personality, which is great!  So, these are some of the big milestones we've reached in the past month!

• Each morning we sing a series of songs with motions which are her "exercises."  One song we sing is "The Wheels on the Bus" and for the windows going up and down, I've always held her hands and brought her to the sitting position and then back to laying down.  She has now learned to keep her head and her body aligned when I do this, rather than letting her head dangle back.  Lot's of neck strength now!
• She's also starting to lean up, lifting her head off the ground/chair as though trying to sit up.  This is why she now has to be strapped in to EVERYTHING she sits in.  Otherwise, she'd just flip herself right out.
• She's starting to become a little mobil.  I've realized that if I lay her down on her play mat and look away for a second, when I turn around, she's never exactly where I left her.  She can use her feet to push herself around the play mat, and can move quite far and fast if she wants.
• Emma is close to being able to sit up on her own.  I can let go of her while sitting and she'll stay in that position for a bit before she starts to lean over one way or another.
• She's also close to rolling over from her back to her stomach.  She can now easily get onto her side, and chooses to do so a lot.  This is why she will no longer be swaddled while sleeping.  Since she does so by using her legs, I don't want her to end up on her stomach while swaddled and not be able get her head up. (side note: while typing this, Emma had her first full rollover from her back to her stomach!  Way to go bean!!)
• Emma has now become a little chatterbox.  She is squealing, cooing, and making sounds ALL THE TIME!  She can also blow bubbles which she loves to do!
• Everything goes into the mouth... Her fingers, our fingers, toys, books... she's not selective!  Her gross motor skill of grabbing things and putting them to her mouth is working great! (side note: as I was finishing typing this, I found trying to get her toes into her mouth for the first time. :-))
• The bean is becoming a papa's girl!  Every time she hears Danny's voice or sees him, she gets a big smile on her face, and he gets more smiles and giggles than anyone or anything else!  I even put him on speaker phone the other day and she was furiously looking around for her papa every time he'd say anything.  She was quite confused as to why she couldn't find him.
• She is giggling all the time now!  It is so much fun!
• She can now sit in her bouncer, which she enjoys.  Her feet only barley reach the floor so we have to put a pillow or some books underneath, but she does like to get it bouncing.
• Sadly, right now we are going through the first baby cold.  Luckily, it hasn't been too bad, just a stuffy nose.  Unfortunately it's been stressful for the parents, as we were concerned for the first couple of days she would stop breathing since she can't breath through her mouth that well yet.  But, she has seemed to adapt well and has taken to breathing through her mouth on occasion when she's struggling through the nose.  And, we've been using saline drops and the bulb syringe constantly.  We seem to be coming near the end of it.

We've had a couple of new experiences the past month as well.  She had her first eye doctor appointment.  We had this because not only was she still cross eyed, but she was also turning her head really far to each side a lot, which our ped said may mean she is having trouble seeing.  So, for the appointment, they had to dilate her eyes and everything.  I was so impressed at how she handled it.  No crying or fussing at all!  She even managed to fall asleep while we were waiting for the dilation to work. At this point, she's still slightly more far sided than she should be, but they expect it to correct itself.  We have another appointment in November to make sure it has.  Otherwise, she will be wearing baby glasses.  Please pray we don't have to go that route.

Also, she and I had our first experience working in the church nursery together.  We did it for four days in one week during VBS.  The first day I was in the Toddler room, which didn't work so well.  There were about 20 one- and two-year-olds.  Because she's so small, and all the two-year-olds were very interested in her, I had to wear her in the Bjorn the ENTIRE time we were there, which was for about 4.5 hours.  During much of this time, I was also leaning down and picking up many of the one- and two-year-olds who were upset, so by the end my back was in large amounts of pain.  So, for the other three days, I was put in the actual nursery.  This was much better, as there were only 7-8 kids in there each day, and 4 adults.  Still, being in there resulted in her getting poked in the eye or smacked in the head at least once a day by another child.  We survived though, and she had fun watching the other babies.  I do think this may have been where she got her current cold though...  In a couple of more months, when she's old enough to be in the nursery during church, I'll start serving once a month and she'll get to go in there the rest of the time without me.  Wonder how that will go?? :-)

Here's a couple of videos of our baby girl being cute!  Enjoy!!

This is our bubble blowing video! :-)

First time in her bouncer... sorry it's sideways.  I don't know how to fix it.

We call her our little rodent, as she tries to chew on everything! :-)

Isn't she the coolest baby on the block!! :-)

A New Way of Eating in the Brown Household...

I am trying to change the way the Browns eat!  This is no easy task I assure you.  Why is that?  Well to begin with, as Danny so rightly put it, I don't really want to eat a different way.  That is the first problem, yes!  I was angry at first when he said this to me, but in essence he is right.  I have been raised my whole life on eating few fruits, even fewer vegetables, and having many sweets right at my fingertips.  I don't blame my parents for this.  While some of it was their doing (my mother doesn't like many veggies herself and therefore didn't try to force us to eat them) it was my choice to continue eating that way when I got older.  When Danny and I got married, we ate a lot of things out of a box, processed, and full of ingredients I can't even pronounce.  We ate a lot of macaroni and cheese, hamburger helper, and sugary cereals for breakfast.  Once we were both making money, we started eating out, A LOT!

So, for most of my life, this is how I would eat.  It is much easier to stick with what you know, rather than change to something you don't know.  Also, when you eat a lot of junk, you begin to crave that junk.  You get a "sweet tooth" or you just "need" a wopper today.  I can agree with Danny in that much of me enjoys this way of eating because it is comfortable and I've learned to like that food.  I would get tired of it sometimes, and get on a healthy eating kick, but then quickly fall off the wagon.  I didn't put in the effort to learn new ways of cooking, find healthier versions of things, or practice cooking from scratch.  I would always fall back on what I knew.

Now, it's no longer about me.  Now there is this new person in our lives, who will be watching what we do, and learning to copy us.  It is my dream to raise a child who not only eats healthy, but is willing to try many new things, basically the opposite of me.  I can't do that by constantly putting crap in her body or feeding her one thing but eating something else myself.  I have to set an example for Emma and any other children we may have now, so that when she grows up and has her own family, she already knows how to have a healthy diet.

So, what am I changing you ask?  First of all, I'm starting with us.  I just finished reading the book Real Food For Mother and Baby.  Her basic way of looking at food is, if our great-grandparents couldn't eat it, we shouldn't either.  She is all about getting back to the real and basic foods.  I can follow some of her principles, but not all.  Here are some of what I learned from her that I'm trying to put into practice.

• We are working towards drinking real milk.  She would say that means whole, unpasturized, unhomogenized, grass fed milk, given no hormones.  I can't do all of those things, but right now we are drinking 2% (with a goal of getting to whole soon), unhomogenized milk.  I also believe from reading about the farm where we get our milk, it is grass fed as well, but I may be wrong there.  I know the cows are given no hormones.  I can tell you that this is the best milk I have ever tasted!!
• I think I have found a place where I can buy pastured eggs, meaning they have the freedom to roam all the time, not just occasionally get out of the cage.  If I can't afford to do that all the time, then I will try to buy organic, free range eggs all of the rest of the time.
• I'm giving up the "low fat" versions of food, and sticking with the full, original food, but in moderation.  Many of the good nutrients we need in foods are eliminated when they try to reduce the fat in them.  Therefore, bring on the fat!
• I'm trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet (at least as much as I can).  I have made a conscious effort as I prepare meals and shop to either not buy some foods that contain it or to buy the organic/pure forms of foods to get away from it.  One example is to buy 100% pure maple syrup.
• I'm trying to stop cooking with or eating foods that contain all unnatural fats such as vegetable oil. I will now cook with lots of butter and olive oil, and as soon as I can find/afford it, coconut oil.
• We are going to eat far more fruits and veggies.  The author of Real Foods says that the best way to cook veggies is with one fat (olive oil or butter) salt and one or two other flavors to add a little extra.  So, tonight I cooked organic broccoli by sauteing it in butter along with salt and chopped garlic and sprinkled it with parmesan cheese.  Danny LOVED it!  And, he's not a huge cooked broccoli fan. 
• We are going to limit the amount of times a month we eat out, especially fast foods.  Our budget could really benefit from this as well as our bodies!

Now, these are the first steps I'm taking right now to make us healthier eaters.   Please don't for a second read this and think I'm saying that I'm great at any of these steps (except maybe the milk... it is the best milk ever!) because I am definitely not.  It will be a slow process, but if I can make small changes over time, in the future we will be eating much better than now.  To give myself some extra grocery money to do some of these things, I'm trying to coupon so that I can stockpile some of our "essentials" allowing me to only purchase a few items for each meal and giving me some extra spending money for the rest.  I'd love to get to where I can purchase exclusively grass fed beef, but that is expensive, so we're not there yet!  Thus far, I have loved making some new meals, and I feel like we're having such a bigger variety than before.  I'm trying not to make things too hard, or otherwise I won't stick to it.  I have a good year to work on this before I'll be feeding a third mouth consistently.  Which brings me to my next change, which is more of a change of plans than a change of routine!

A long time ago, when Danny and I were still only dating and we were discussing the possibility of children in the future, I remember telling him I would absolutely NEVER breast feed a baby!  I was not breast fed as a baby, and I didn't think that was something I needed to do.  He argued pretty hard with me that night about how much healthier it was for a baby, but I couldn't help but point out that I was a healthy child as was my brother, and neither of us ever had breast milk (unless we had some at the hospital before we started on formula, I don't know).  Never would I have imagined I would go so completely to the other side of that argument! :-)

What do I mean by "so completely to the other side"?  I LOVE nursing Emma!  For the first 2-3 weeks of her life, we had some difficulty.  She learned to latch fairly quickly, but I was still very sore and bled quite a bit!  But, once we got passed that time, we've had no issues.  I enjoy nursing her for many reasons, and she certainly loves to nurse!  You only have to get one look at her adorably chunky thighs and arms to believe me!  Still, right after she was born, I began to dream of when she'd start solids.  I did tons of research into which baby cookbook I wanted, found the perfect freezer containers for all of the homemade baby food I couldn't wait to cook for her.  And, then I read Real Food as well as a couple of good blogs, and I discovered baby-led weaning.  After doing some research into the topic, I think this is the route this family will go.  What does that mean?

• Emma will have no pureed foods, unless she is one of those children with a very high gag reflex and just absolutely needs it for a bit
• We will not start with the "recommended" cereal, as grains are harder to digest and have less nutrients in them.  I hope to push off grains until 1 year.
• I won't begin feeding her anything but breast milk until she shows signs of wanting to try food.  It will be at least 6 months, but it may be much later if she isn't ready by then.
• She will eat whatever we are having.  I don't want to start her getting used to "kid foods" at a young age, and become dependent upon them.
• I hope I can be patient enough to not worry about how much she's getting within the first year.  Breast milk will be the main source of nutrition for her for much longer, therefore, if she doesn't eat much at the beginning, then I'm going to TRY not to worry or fret.  That's a very important part of the process but the hardest for me, as I just want to know she's getting the nutrition she needs.

As Emma grows, I will keep you updated on how we do with this.  I hope, by providing her with lots of tastes and textures early on she will be less picky than I was, but I also know that some of the pickiness comes from nature not nurture.  So, we will see how that plays out later.  I know this will equal a lot of work for me, because everything I've read on the topic says that to keep BF a baby that long, and as the main supplier of nutrients means that the mama has to eat and drink a lot of healthy foods herself to keep up the milk supply.  So, my prayer is that I will be able to do so!

After a lot of thought and prayer on the topic, I feel like this overhaul is a good idea.  Besides all of the obvious health benefits, I believe it will help all three of us to be better stewards of our bodies, as we are called to be by Christ.  This isn't a "get thin" fix for me or a new fad.  I want to know that what I am feeding my baby girl as well as Danny and myself is helping our bodies, not hurting them.  We have overindustrialized food so much that we have eliminated many things we actually need and added many more that are harmful to us.  While I will still enjoy many of the products of industrialization of food, and I'm not out to condemn it, I do hope that we can get back to some of the good, "real" food we can overall be healthier people and have a better enjoyment of food!  So, for those of you who have lasted this long with this post, thanks for reading my thoughts!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of these issues, and if you follow any of these principles, how they have or have not worked for you!

Almost 3 months old...

My baby girl is growing up so fast already!  When I was at a friends the other day, who has a baby 2 months older than Emma, I was told she totally still feels like a newborn, who is so small and cuddly.  I don't feel this way at all.  I have already almost forgotten what it was like when she was that tiny!  I feel like everyday she gets a little bigger.  Here is where we are at thus far!

Holding the Head up:
She can hold her head up like a champ!  When she does tummy time, she can completely raise it up while on her elbows and look around.  She also no longer despises tummy time like she used to, due to the fact that she can look around and still see her fun toys hanging above her head.  I also finally removed her infant head support out of her carseat.  She had been too tall to use it for awhile, so we just pulled it up as far as it would go once we strapped her in.  But, due to her having much more control over her head, I took it out.  She's much more comfortable now, I think!  I was told by a couple who have a baby 2 weeks older than Em that she was holding her head up really well for that age.  Their son was still quite wobbly, so go bean!

Play time:
She is definitely becoming quite the chatty little girl.  She was bound to be that way, considering her parents! :-)  She loves to squeal, coo, and laugh as she plays with toys dangling above her.  She is also very reactionary to us.  She smiles when I do specific things and giggles at papa all the time!  We have a morning routine now, where we sing some songs and do her "exercises" that I learned from working with Isobel and Rudie!  She enjoys that time, and usually smiles and laughs all the way through!

She is also learning to reach and grab for things.  She loves the hanging dragonfly on her froggy chair, and she has learned to reach and grab onto the little discs hanging from him.  It is so cute to watch her try so hard to get her hands to do what she wants them to do.  She still gets overexcited sometimes and totally misses them due to erratic hand movements, but many times she is able to calmly reach up and grab them.  Then she smiles really big and holds on for dear life!

Sleeping:
So, she definitely doesn't take after me in the sleep category.  I was told I was a child who came home from the hospital sleeping all night.  Emma still likes to get up every 2 hours at least, sometimes ever hour, all night long!  It can make for some rough nights, and a mama who seems to be always going on very little sleep.  I'm learning to cope better than I thought I would.

For this reason, we're starting sleep training.  Right now, we're doing very mild sleep training.  We are establishing a bedtime routine right now.  She gets bathed some nights, but every night she gets an infant massage and then fed.  After that, she is nursed while papa reads the Bible to her.  Then, we swaddle her up tight, and I rock her and read her "It's Time to Sleep, My Love" while holding her.  Eventually she falls asleep in my arms, and then I lay her down.  She's down around 8 most nights, and usually doesn't wake up the first time until 11 (the only longer stretch she has).  That's about when I go to bed, so I will nurse her again, and then we start the consistent wake ups.

We have established a shorten routine for naptime as well.  Basically, I just watch for tired cues all day, and as soon as I see them, she is swaddled, rocked, read to, and put down.  Most of the time she sleeps no more than 30 minutes, sometimes as little as 10 minutes.  Usually, I will go back in and rock her again and if she falls asleep quickly I'll put her back down.  If not, I get her up.  This usually happens anywhere from 3-6 times throughout the day, depending on how much we get out of the house.  Every now and then, she'll have one really long nap (1 hour or even late in the evening she'll sleep 2 hours) allowing me to run around like crazy getting housework done (she's sleep right now, so I should be doing that).

As much as I hate the idea, and I know I will cry doing so, I think our next step is to let her learn to fall asleep on her own, by allowing her to cry it out.  I know many people are against this, and just say to hold her if she sleeps like that, but it's just not practical for me anymore.  At some point soon, I will be taking care of other children besides her.  If I have to spend 30 minutes each nap, rocking her to sleep just to go back in there and rock her again 15 minutes later, I won't be able to keep tabs on other kids.  She is going to have to learn to sleep on her own, and right now no matter how tired she is, she almost never falls asleep without help.  She is also getting to the point where she won't sleep through anything anymore, so I can't just stick her in the Bjorn and let her sleep while I am playing with other kids.  She's too curious about what's going on, and she wouldn't get in a good nap.  Therefore, soon we will have to let the crying begin.......

Other developments:

• She can put weight on her legs now, and enjoys when I hold her up in a standing position so she can look around
• As I've said, she's very curious and loves to watch everything that's going on around her.
• She's getting closer to being able to sit.  I can let go of her when she's sitting and she doesn't always immediately fall over.  She can also sit in the bumbo now!
• She's preparing for those first teeth to come in, though I'm sure they are still months away (I hope).  She's learning to chew on my finger if she can get it into her mouth.  She will gum on it all day if I let her.
• She loves her fingers.  She has learned to get her fist to her mouth, and will suck and chew on her own fingers all the time.
• We are finally back to cloth diapers!!

Overall she seems to be a very happy girl.  Other than a horrible fussy couple of weeks right around the 6-7 week mark (and right when the doctor said it would happen), she has been a pretty easy baby.  She usually only gets fussy if she's hungry, tired, or needing a little attention.  Those things are usually easy to fix.  She enjoys playing in her play gym on the floor as well as her bouncy chair.  She loves to be sung to, talked to, and kissed all over her cheeks! :-)  We get a lot of happy coos, smiles, and laughs throughout the day, which is great!  I'm excited to see how her personality progresses as she gets older, but for now, I wish she'd slow down in the growing and be my cute, cuddly baby a little longer!  Here are a few pics of her recently!

All dressed up for a wedding!

Family day to the zoo!

Sitting pretty in the bumbo!

Happy doing tummy time!

Snuggling with papa

sleeping all swaddled in the crib... with my eyes partly opened

I did what you should never do... woke a sleeping baby.  She was not happy, but we had a wedding to get to.

Reflections on being a mother...

I know I have only been a mother for ten weeks (almost a year if you count from conception) but there already a few things I feel as though I have come to realize.  Most of these things I had been told, but until being a mother and holding my baby, I couldn't fully understand them.

First of all, it really is different when it is your own child.  What is "it" you ask?  It is EVERYTHING.  I have been a nanny now for five years.  I have taken care of small babies before.  I really thought I'd be ready for most simple things that came along.  Boy, was I wrong...  This little girl has me wrapped around her finger in a way that no other child has ever been able to do.  For example, as we have been discussing how to get her to sleep and nap better, I almost melt down at the thought of letter her cry it out, yet I have had to go through the crying it out phase with two other kids.  It was hard, and I always felt like the worst nanny ever when those babies would cry, but now that it's my baby, I can't even stand the idea of letting her cry like that.  At this age, we have decided it's too early, but I know that eventually we'll get to the point where we will have to allow her to cry, and something tells me there will be as many tears on my side as on hers.

There is a good side to what's different with her as well!  I have far more patience with her at this point (and I'm hoping that continues) than I normally would with a baby of this age!  I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you I've never become frustrated with her crying and refusal to sleep at times.  I have!  But, I feel like it takes far longer than before to get me to that point.  She's my baby girl!  I am more concerned about comforting her and loving her than making her do what I want at that time.  I pray to God that he will continue to provide that same patience when it isn't simply a little crying or fighting naps, but actual disobedience that I am dealing with!

This brings me to the second thing I have learned in the past few weeks.  A couple of years ago I was reading a friend's blog she was writing after her son's birth.  She said that MOST (not all) of her selfishness went away when he was born.  I always prayed that when I would have a child, the same thing would happen to me!  We are all selfish people, and I don't know that having a child is going to take all of that away, but I know God can really use our children to cleans us and mold us into being more of what he calls us to be than we were before they were in our lives.  I prayed that he would do that for me, as I continue to do so now that she is here.

Before Em was here, I felt that when it came to my time, I was a very selfish person.  When Danny and I would sit down at the end of a long day, I didn't want to listen to him go on about the latest video game he was playing or some movie he really liked.  I wanted some "me" time.  We quickly became those people who would sit next to each other on the couch and he would do one thing while I did another.  Danny never wanted that to be the case.  He always managed to keep up on the shows I was watching, the books I was reading, and the things I was interested in.  I, on the other hand, had a very hard time remembering simple things he'd tell me about, such as the fact that Ron Perlman was Hellboy.  I would ask him who the same actors were many times, because I didn't make it a point to pay attention to all of those little details.  I didn't watch him play many video games, no matter how many times he asked me to, because I felt that we had so little down time, I deserved to use that time to catch up on my interests.

Once I found out Emma was on her way here, something in me changed.  I realized that I didn't want to raise a child in a house where her parents were spending every evening doing things in separate rooms (or might as well have been, for as much interaction we were having).  It became more important to me to keep up with what Danny was doing than to always use that time for me.  And, that has run over into how I deal with Emma.  When I look over the side of my bed early in the morning at a smiley little girl who is awake for the day, I want to get her up and play with her rather than ignore her for more sleep.  Throughout the day, I would much rather be playing with and spending time with her than reading books, watching movies, etc.  I look forward to taking extra spending money and getting her new clothes and books, rather than always wanting to get things for myself.  So, I feel that I can say that some of my selfish nature has been helped by having a child.  There are still many times that I struggle with this concept and I know that I will always do so.  We are all born with very selfish natures.  The only way we can ever get rid of them is to daily, no make that minute by minute hand over our selfish desires to the Lord and pray that he will replace them with his own desires.  So, please know that I am not trying to say that I am now a selfless woman who always puts everyone else before herself.  I am just saying that Emma has made it easier to think of someone else besides me.  At times she helps me put my families needs where they should go... above my own!  I just love her so much more than myself, and desire to love, protect, and serve her in any way possible.  My prayer now is that God will continue to remove my selfish desires when they creep back up, and replace them with his desires, which will always be to serve him by serving my family well!

This brings me to my third revelation.  A wise woman told me a couple of weeks before Emma was born that she couldn't wait to see how God revealed himself to Danny and I through our beautiful daughter.  At the time, I of course believed that I understood what she meant by that.  Then, I looked in the eyes of my beautiful daughter, and was so overcome with love for her, even more than when she was in my womb, and I came to grasp a little bit of what she was talking about.  The Bible tells us that we love, only because God first loved us.  The only reason we have the ability to love is because we are made in his likeness.  So, when I look at my daughter, and realize just how much I love her, I think about how much more Christ loves us.  I want so many good things for her in this life.  I want to protect her from all harm, love her, spend time with her.  These are all things God desires for us.  I know that being a parent will reveal God to me in many more ways, as I have to deal with things such as forgiveness, discipline, watching her make her own choices, etc.  But for now, I have a little more of an idea about God's love for me as I my love for Emma grows everyday!

So, these may seem like simple and small revelations, but for me, these are the things occupying my mind lately, so I thought I'd share.  I love my baby Emma more than I would have ever thought possible.  I so look forward to watching her grow up, become her own little person, and I pray that I get to watch her come to know and love God as well.  For those of you who are tired of listening to me babble on about my thoughts, I will give you a couple of cute videos of the bean for making it this far!  Enjoy!

She is becoming quite chatty isn't she! :-)

One more for all the grandparents/great grand parents who love to see the little one excited and chatty!

Emma's dedication/Danny's first Father's Day!

Today was Danny's first father's day!  While we aren't big on doing presents, we did decide to celebrate with a BBQ with all of our friends and Nancy!  It was a lot of fun, and I think Danny enjoyed himself.  Here is a picture of papa with his bean at the cookout.

As for the babe, we had Emma dedicated this morning.  For those of you reading this who don't know what that means exactly, let me explain.  Let me say that we did not baptize Emma today.  Our church does not believe in infant baptism.  We believe baptism is to be done when the individual is old enough to make the decision and know what they are doing and why.

Therefore, dedication is a time when we promise to do our best to raise Emma in a house that is serving the Lord in every way.  That is a very hard promise to make, and one that we can only live up to by the grace of God!  We have already talked about ways we can do this.  Right now, Danny reads the bible to Emma every night, and we pray afterwards as a family.  Right now, she is usually either nursing or sleeping through it, but we figure that one day she will be old enough to stay awake and participate.  I would love if we can continue this tradition over dinner when she is a little older, and it can be a family discussion time!  Until then, we will just read it over her and pray together.

Also, throughout the day, I try my best to talk about the Bible with her.  I will tell her who different people in the Bible are, most importantly Jesus!  I also try to pray with her throughout the day.  We also sing praise songs while she nurses, the most consistent one being Amazing Grace.  She seems to enjoy getting sung to.

It will be harder to raise her to know Jesus when she is older and we have to deal with things such as discipline and teaching behaviors.  We were given the book "Shepherding a Child's Heart" as a baby gift, and look forward to reading that.  It is important to me that she learn not just to "behave" at times or for people, but that she learn why we choose to act in specific ways.  I want to teach her not to try and please her father and I, but to try and please Jesus first, and realize that if she does that, she will please us more than she could ever know!  I don't have answers about how to do that, but I can only have faith that with lots of prayer throughout her life, God will guide us in how to do that.

I know that first and foremost, it starts with a family that follows God, and has a real love for the Gospel, rather than one that just goes through the motions because that is what we're "supposed" to do.  Danny and I need to live out the gospel in the best ways we can, and allow Jesus to work through us and our faith, to reveal himself to Emma.  We have to go to church, read the Bible, pray, and participate in other Christian activities, not because that's what we've always done and because it's routine, but because we have hearts that long for Jesus and to grow closer to him all the time.  That is something much easier said than done sometimes.  It is easy to fall into the routine of things, and forget the heart aspect of doing them.

So here is my prayer for Emma... That Jesus will reveal Himself to her at a young age, so that she can live a long life devoted to and serving the Lord.  I pray that she can learn to be content in her life, with whatever God provides for her.  I pray that she will grow to have a humble and generous heart, who knows her strengths and gifts and uses them well to serve Jesus.  Danny and I are already praying for her future husband (if she chooses to get married), and we pray that through me and other women who have influence over her, she can learn how to be a loving and submissive wife, who serves her family humbly and lovingly!  We also pray that her husband will be raised in a family where he will learn how to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and will learn how to lead his family well, being a strong and secure man!  We both look forward to our lives with Emma, teaching her who Jesus is and watching her grow in knowledge and love of the Lord.  My greatest desire right now is to see the day that Emma accepts the Lord as her savior!!

I'll leave you with the scripture Danny read at her dedication.

2 Corinthians 5:20, 21: Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Here is Emma and I on stage as papa is reading scripture.  Notice how she is watching him. :-)  He was in the dark, so he couldn't be seen in the pic.

Here's the fam on our first Father's Day!

Weddings, Nashville Style

This past weekend, Emma and I traveled to Nashville for Wendi Anderson's wedding.  There are few people for whom I'd get on a plane with a 6 week old baby and travel to watch them get married.  Wendi is one of the few!  So, Emma and I boarded the plane on Friday and made the 4 hour flight to Nashville.  I was very surprised at how well Emma did!  The only problem we had was shortly after take off, right after I had just allowed the thought of, "take off did not seem to bother her at all" to enter my head, when she decided to spit up a TON!  Luckily for me, I just happened to have the burp cloth in the right place to catch most of it, preventing it from going on any unsuspecting travelers.  Other than that small problem, she made it there without any real fussiness or problems.

What I think neither of us were prepared for when we arrived was the extreme heat/humidity that is the midwest.  Apparently after a few years of being away from the midwest summers, I had forgotten all about what they were like.  Boy, was it a rough few days.  That heat can just zap the already limited energy right from my body!

Emma was very excited on Friday to meet "aunt" Summer and "cousin" Kyla!  We had a wonderful dinner together, and headed back to the hotel to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening.  I was a little worried about how Emma would do sleeping in a new place, and I feared she would keep Kyla up all night.  She actually slept very well in her car seat, and didn't cry once while they were sleeping.

Saturday Emma got to enjoy the day with me, doing pre-wedding day activities with the other bridesmaids and I.  We enjoyed a bridesmaids' luncheon with the ladies where she was passed around the room and oohed and ahhed over by everyone!  She even got to wear her cute summer dress!

Sadly, this dress which is 0-3 months, is already a little short for her!

After a fun luncheon with the ladies, we went to get our nails done.  Emma slept quite soundly in her seat while I got a nice pedi!  Unfortunately, right at the end the man doing Wendi's nails bumped the seat slightly, causing her to scream like a banshee!  The poor guy didn't know what to do... She calmed down quickly once she was out of her seat.  That night, she got to stay with Pawpaw and Riri alone for the first time while I went to the very swanky rehearsal dinner.  It was the first time leaving her alone with anyone other than Danny, but I was proud of myself for only checking in once! :-)

Sunday, which was wedding day, was another warm one.  We enjoyed a nice brunch with Pawpaw and Riri, before pawpaw headed home and riri and I headed to the wedding.  For the fact that it was incredibly hot that day, and the wedding was located at a place requiring us to walk about 5 minutes back and forth between where the wedding was being held and where the girls dressed at multiple times, Emma did great!  She only got fussy a few times.

Here she is in the bridal suite watching the beautiful bride get ready, and dreaming of her own wedding someday FAR in the future!

The wedding was a lot of fun to be a part of.  Wendi looked beautiful, and all 10 other bridesmaids besides me looked amazing as well.  It was so much fun to be a part of it and to spend some time with the other lovely ladies.  As for the service, Jeff Lash, the husband of Wendi's matron-of-honor did an amazing job!  It was one of the most Christ centered "sermons" I've heard at a wedding in a long time.  It was also very personal to the couple, which was awesome.  His wife Annie, and the maid-of-honor Rachel, sang a few songs throughout the ceremony, bringing many of us to tears.  I don't know that there was a dry eye in the house!  I don't know that I have ever cried that much at a wedding.  I was just so overwhelmed with happiness for Wendi finding a man as great for her as Daniel!

One very cool thing happened during the wedding.  Mom, who was in charge of Emma, said that she was getting a little fussy.  Then, the ladies starting singing Amazing Grace, and she got very happy, smiley, and talkative.  What's cool about this is that I sing this song to her every time I nurse her when we are alone.  I do this, because Danny and I have been trying to find as many ways as possible to bring the gospel into our house and to surround her with it.  We have read a chapter of the bible every night since she was born and while papa is at work, I try to talk to her about who Jesus is.  Another way I thought we could share the gospel with her was to sing hymns/praise songs to her as she nurses.  So, I don't know if she really recognized that song when she heard it or not, but I would like to think she did! :-)

This is three generations of Harvey/Brown women!  You can see she was a little unhappy at this point!

A few more pics from the weekend...

Me and the beautiful bride!

Kicking it on the dance floor!

This is her attitude pose!

Look at those chubby little cheeks! :-)

She is learning to mimic us when we make funny faces!

At the airport saying goodbye to Riri!

This is after we got home.  I literally gave her a bath and put her down for a second to do something and came back to find her out cold!  She was one tuckered out little lady!

The weekend was an overall success!  The wedding was beautiful and my little bean did an excellent job of allowing me to enjoy the festivities and enjoy them herself!  Hopefully all of our travels will go that well.  :-)

Emma's Here...

Hey all!  So, as you can see, I am a bit behind in keeping up with my blog.  There wasn't a lot of exciting things happening before Emma was born, so I took a small break from typing, and since then I haven't had a lot of hands free time!  Nonetheless, I thought I'd go ahead now and catch everyone up, and then I promise I'll try to be better at keeping this blog up to date!

Before Emma was born, our time was spent moving into our new home, and trying to fix it up as much as possible before she got here.  That has involved a lot of painting, some gardening (we're still trying to figure that one out) and acquiring some new furniture (thanks to my mom!).  We were luck to get most of the big stuff done before Emma made her appearance (it helped that she was soooo late) and now we're just trying to figure out what we want to do next.

As for Emma, she made her appearance on May 2, 2011 somewhat reluctantly.  I was 10 days past my due date, and we finally went into the hospital to be induced.  This isn't the way I wanted to do it, but I was very fearful of her being a large baby already, and I was trying for the best chance at a vaginal birth, so we went with that idea.

We showed up at the hospital on a Saturday night around 8.  They weren't planning to start the pitocin until the next morning, but they had me come in to start me on another drug (don't remember the name) to help me get ready for the pitocin in the morning.  Once the meds were in, I had to lay on my side for 2 hours straight, which I didn't like.  I decided to finally give in to having lunch meat, and Danny ordered me a Jimmy John's Turkey Tom, which I was forced to eat laying down on my side.  It was hard, but I pushed through because I had be REALLY looking forward to that sandwich.

Not much happened throughout the night, except for my lack of sleep due to their constant monitoring, so at 6am the next morning, I got up and showered and they started the pitocin.  I really thought things would start going then.  By 11am I was having regular contractions, but no real movement.  I was at 5 cm, so they decided to break my water.  The next contraction after that was like night and day compared to the rest.  I was then in full blown labor.  I tried for hours to use all of the relaxation techniques they taught me in my birthing classes, but not much helped.  My contractions were coming every 20-30 seconds most of the time, and some lasted upwards of 2 minutes.  The bath helped some, because I was able to push on one side of the tub with my feet and press my back against the other side during my contractions.  I was having strong back labor, so that helped those contractions some.  Once out of the tub, I tried moving around, but when a contraction would hit I would almost hit the floor, because I was having so much trouble standing.  So, we decided that an epidural was the way to go.  I had them check me one more time, deciding that if I'd made a lot of progress, I could forgo it, but I was still only at a 5.  Once the epidural was in, I was great!

I labored like that for hours, and by 10pm, I was still only at an 8, and seemed to be slowing down.  My doctor didn't think Emma was turned properly, but she was still high enough that she couldn't really tell.  At this point, I was having so much pressure put on my bladder, that my urine was straight blood.  The doc gave me one more hour, and said that after that if I hadn't went up any more we'd need to discuss a C-section.  After the next hour I was still only at an 8, and I was less effaced than before.  Therefore, they decided a c-section was the way to go.  I was quickly prepared and we were taken to the OR.

Everything I was told about a CS was true!  Once I was in there, I was shaking so bad, and I couldn't control it.  My anesthesiologist sat by my head and tried to calm me down before Danny was allowed in the room.  I was almost asleep before Danny came in due to my complete exhaustion.  Danny came in and was so concerned with my shaking that it woke me right up again.

It took them about 15 minutes once they started the surgery to get her out.  I really thought she was much bigger than she ended up being because they kept making comments about her being a big baby.  She ended up only being 8lbs, 7oz and 19 inches long.  She does have cute little chubby arms and legs, so that's probably why they thought she was so big.  She went straight under the heating lamp to get cleaned off and then was promptly handed to Danny.  Prior to him getting her, he took a picture with his cell phone and brought it over for me to see, so my first view of her was only a pic.  Finally he brought her over and put her up against my cheek so I could give her a kiss, and then sat down next to me for a bit.  It took quite a long time for them to sew me up, but once they were done, it was right back to the room so that I could finally hold her.

I nursed her and then she went right to sleep, and slept the rest of the night.  We ended up staying in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon, and we were both very ready to be home.  We then spent 2 full weeks doing nothing but sitting on the couch and watching movies.  Emma was a great sleeper from the start as long as she was being held, so we lived in our basement until tonight (almost 6 weeks later) so that I could sit up on the reclining sofa and hold her and Danny slept on our guest mattress that we brought downstairs.

At this point, she is finally sleeping all night without being held, in her Froggy bouncy chair next to me.  We are hoping she'll move into the pack and play tonight.  She has had three nights in a row where she's slept at least 6 hours between feedings, and one of those nights she had another 4 hour stretch after her 6 hour one.  I'm hoping we're getting closer to sleeping through the night, but as we've only had 3 nights of this, I won't get too used to it.  She could still relapse back into sleeping only 1.5-2 hour stretches very easily.

Overall the birth experience was much better than I thought it would be.  I had recently watched "The Business of Being Born" and was very worried about having a hospital birth.  I was really worried that I would feel like the doctors didn't care about my hopes for the birth, but would make decisions that benefited them (as the documentary leads you to believe).  Overall, I was incredibly happy with my experience.  I felt very in control (at least in the sense of making decisions... God was the real and only one in control) and I felt like the doctors and nurses were trying their best to see to my wishes for the birth.  I loved all of my nurses and my doctor!  And, most importantly, we got our amazing little girl from it!!

The first pic I got to see

After her first bath!