To Live is to Learn

And...another month has flown by. Baby girl is 13 months and well on her way to toddler status. She is up to new and exciting things every day. Lets see just in the past week she has begun standing without pulling herself up first. She is much more stable with walking and she also is much more steady in shoes than she was just a few weeks ago. She has learned if she gets on her tippiest of toes she can reach about three inches into a desk and pull whatever she finds down. Which is funny but Mommy is learning how dangerous that can be depending on what is up there. She can now climb. When on the couch she tries to climb up and over onto the floor, Lord help us when she can climb up on the couch by herself. She's a curious little love. She recently discovered the toilet paper and how when she pulls on it, it unravels, ha! She now points to things. We are trying to teach her bye bye and have started with doing high fives. Which she loves to do. She is now walking probably 75%...

One year old! My baby is technically a baby anymore! I know, I know, I'm late, she's 12.5 months old. I do my best but blogging goes by the wayside and I always promise to be better and I'm not so for those of you who still read thanks. Otherwise, I just enjoy writing and if nobody ever reads this it can be a journal entry in Maggie's baby book :) Okay, without further ado, 1. Eesh, this first year went by oh so fast. On her actual birthday we didn't do anything out of the ordinary. We sang to her and then went about our day. Three days later on a Saturday, we had a houseful of all our family. Maggie kept with her good nature, she seemed a little overwhelmed but not too much. She still occasionally smiled. She was very blessed to get a lot of cool gifts and she did eventually dig into her cake. It was a good day had by all. At her 1 year appointment, she weighed 24.6 pounds so she doesn't beat our cousin Sam in the biggest Jacks' baby. Pheww. She gets...

At this time last year, I was writhing through every contraction, anticipating the birth of our baby. This year, I'm beyond blessed by our baby girl Maggie. Motherhood is a crazy thing. Being a wife and a mother is all I've ever wanted to be. Getting my nursing degree was just a side job until God brought the right man. Funny, every moment in my life I've thought that I was humble and then I have the experience happen to me, ie. motherhood or marriage and find out just how prideful I am. For instance, I remember when I was single wondering how come somebody wouldn't just let the baby cry until they went to sleep. No big deal right? WRONG. Now that I'm a mother that was by far the hardest party of mothering thus far this year. I also tried not to have expectations about motherhood which until about 7 months I think I did okay, then we introduced solids and unlike the movies our baby didn't just eat the food and swallow. In fact she projectile vomited every fo...

I was watching our baby girl in the bath last night, splashing and scooting around and realized, she's 11 months tomorrow! EEk! I know I say this every month but truly this year has gone by so fast! One more month and I'll have a one year old. I'm starting to think after 11 months I'm never going to get used to her growing up. Boy has 10 months been more adventurous then 9. She is so mobile. She still doesn't straight up crawl but that doesn't matter, she crab crawls all over the place, pulls herself up on everything and just when I think she can't do that,she shows me she can. She is able to walk assisted quite steady now. She'll even take up to 4 steps toward somebody when she feels like it. However; at this stage she knows it's faster to crab crawl so that is what she does most of the time. She is such a good natured baby, we are so blessed. This past month, Tim had two weeks of vacation off, in that two week time frame we volunteered at ...

Hey All, So we have reached the point with Maggie, where hubby and I think we should read some books about discipline and come to conclusions about how we want to raise our kids, specifically.  That being said, anyone who has spent time with me about parenting knows I prefer the gentle way with babies and the grace-based way with older ones. Therefore, the books I want to read are as follows: 1. Spirit-led Parenting 2. Grace-Based Parenting 3. Give Them Grace 4. Loving Our Kids on Purpose 5. Loving the Little Years 6. Shepherding a Child's Heart Those are all the ones I can think of right now. I'll add to this list as I find more. I'm sharing this info with you because I hope to read them then review them. Stay Tuned!

Hey, Look! Can you believe it! Maggie is only 10 months and 1 day and I'm writing her update, it's a miracle! HA! Anyway, baby girl is growing, growing and growing. She's quite quick with her crab crawling. She's getting into everything and I find myself saying "no Maggie" way too much during the day. Here I thought our house was fairly baby proofed, it is when it comes to the outlets but I'd be lying if I said I wish we had an entertainment center that had doors and a way to lock up the DVDs. I do my best to hide cords but boy can she find any and all ones that  I miss. Eating solids is still two steps forward one step back. One day she likes something the next she doesn't. The latest success was peaches tonight. She ate them, yay! We'll see if she still likes them in the morning. I don't know what else to feed her for breakfast except cheerios and fruit. Have you other mommas have other suggestions? She won't eat oatmeal or anything...

Okay All, So it's been a very busy month. Obviously, since our girl is nearing 10 months and I'm barely writing this. I do know however; if you read my blog you know I'm terrible at keeping up with it. So for those of you who stick with me thanks. Anyway, onto our baby. So 9 months has been a month of many changes and milestones. First she's a mover now. In the past month she has learned to go from her belly to sitting, from sitting to pulling herself up and she's even taken a few steps before falling down. She is also recently doing a sort of half crab walk half crawl. Needless to say she is fast and can now get into anything and everything her heart desires. Slow down there baby girl!  :)  In the last three days she welcomed tooth number 3. She took her first airplane ride and was a total champ! She's beginning some separation anxiety as when I put her down and walk away she cries. She has starting reaching for people she wants, mainly mommy but occasion...