Heart & Sole: Walk for the Carpenter's

If you have read my blog for very long you probably know the story of our dear friends Darrell and Susie.  If you don't know and are interested you can go read their story here. Anyway, being so far away from our friends while all this has been happening was hard for us and the Perry's.  Lindsey came up with the idea to do a "Heart Walk" in honor of them and ask our friends here for donations to help out their family.  After lots of talks, date changing, idea exchanging, etc. we finally came up with our walk theme, t-shirts to sell, and flyer to send out to the compound.  Our friend Heather was lots of help with designing the shirt and flyer. Thanks Heather!

We planned the walk on Micah's birthday and he was such a good sport about sharing his birthday with our friends. On Monday, February 25, we had our friends come out to walk in memory of Cade and Addi.  We also had pizza ready after to be able to spend more time together.  We had a great turn-out and really appreciated everyone who showed their support for a couple they don't even know.  The whole process was very heartwarming!

THANK YOU!!

8 months

Jacob’s Stats:

Age: 8 months

Weight: 17 lbs. 8 oz

Length: ??

Eye Color: deep blue

Hair color: blonde

Eating Schedule: 5 oz 3 times/day, 6-8 oz morning and night. Solids at lunch and dinner

Sleeping: Jacob naps two-three times a day.  His first nap is in the morning and his long nap is from around 3:30pm-5:30pm.  Sometimes he needs one more cat-nap to get through the day happily.

Clothing: Jake is in some 6-month clothes but has started wearing his 9-month clothes as well. 

New Activities: Month 7 brought lots of changes.  Jacob became able to put himself into sitting position, started army crawling all around the house, and even trying to pull up. He has started eating solids more frequently including carrots, sweet peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, avocados, and pears.  Jacob loves to laugh and play.  He is great at playing by himself with his toys. He is still the happiest smileiest baby ever.

As I said before, pictures are getting harder and harder to come by.  He is way too interested in his sign and doesn't want to be put in his bed if its not nap time. So we just do the best we can!

This is what pictures in the bed look like now

Are we done yet?

Valentines Day

For Valentine's Day this year, Micah and I agreed we both wanted to celebrate the night before on Wednesday which is like Friday in the USA.  I didn't want our entire Thursday to be spent "getting ready" for a Valentine date.  I wanted our Thursday to be more relaxed.  So Micah planned out everything and all I had to do was get ready and get Jake ready to go to Papa's for the evening. I think Papa and Jake had a fun evening!

After I dropped Jacob off I came home to Micah cooking dinner.  He went to the store, picked out the meal, cooked and even cleaned it all up!  As any woman knows, cooking for me is nice but if I have to clean up afterwards then it kinda ruins it.  Micah did great.  My hubby knows me so well that he decided this year instead of giving me flowers I could put that money to a new pair of shoes.  Dubai shopping here I come.  We had a low key, baby free, nice evening at home together.  I love my man!
Of course this means we didn't take any pictures of us.  Ohh well.  I did get a picture of my surprise Valentine cake made by the best cake person ever, Lindsey!

Jake and I made Micah a Valentine card.  It's based on one of the books we read him very often, "Guess How Much I Love You".  The last phrase is the "I love you all the way to the moon and back".  So the card on the inside is Jake's foot prints with the writing "From the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes".   My friend Jenn came up with the idea and I think it's super cute. 

Our newest Valentine this year is such a huge blessing!  We just love him so much!

What am I doing in these flowers?

Baby food

First of all, I want to say that in NO way is making Jake's baby food something I would normally do.  I think its great that some Moms are totally into it but thats just not me.  If we lived in the USA I would be headed to wherever had the best sale on baby food and be done with it.  But, we don't live in the USA and the Saudi brands always available just don't strike much trust in my heart.  So begins the homemade baby food.

I brought enough back with me from the US to get through a while to give us time to get over jet-lag and get back into a rhythm before I had to start making food. Well, the time came for my first attempt.  I had asked my friends a lot of questions, did some research online, and looked at my baby food cook book.  It was time to get started.

I got out my fancy tools and some not so fancy tools.  I was given a great baby food maker machine as a baby gift and it was kinda fun to finally pull it out and use it. On one side it steams and on the other it purees. I also had out my food processor to do more at one time. I had some pans ready for baking the items I wanted to bake. And finally, I had the ice cube treys ready to freeze the final product.

*Of course I decided to do this when Jake was taking his longer nap of the day and of course he decided he didn't want to sleep this day!!

For my first try, I decided to make sweat peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, and apples.  I steamed the sweet peas, pears, and carrots. I baked the apples and the sweet potatoes and a few carrots just to try two different ways.  I sliced, diced, skinned, and prepped the food.

Once it was all done being cooked I pureed it all and pored it into the ice cube treys. It took a little more effort to puree than I thought and I'm sure some of my first time foods aren't as smooth as they should be. Ohh well!

I also bought this handy little tool that Lindsey told me about called the Infantino Fresh Squeeze Station.  This little gadget allows me to take my homemade food and put it into the little bags that are now so popular with baby food.  This is awesome because it gives me a much easier way to store, freeze, and take baby food along with us on outings.  Here I am putting sweet potatoes into the pouches. 

My first time making baby food was long, and little frustrating, and tiring. But, I have no doubt it will get easier every time.  I wrote down lots of notes on what not to do or to do next time.  Hopefully it won't take me nearly as long and Jake will actually sleep through it. 

Here's Jake eating his first homemade sweet potatoes. 

Precious moments

I found myself up much later tonight than normal. Micah went to bed early and I decided to take advantage of uninterrupted time to finish up laundry and watch some tv. Of course this also included some Facebook and news reading. As the night progressed I found myself getting more and more saddened by the pain and suffering I was reading about, angered by the injustices of this world, and grieving for people I know who have been through so much pain and even for people I didn't know. As I noticed these feelings I was trying to decipher why. Was I just emotional? Did someone need my prayers? Or was it just one of those moments when God reminds you that one day He will take all of that away all that pain and suffering?
Revelation 21:4
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Finally I decided to go to bed but as I got into bed I looked at my baby monitor with a sudden urge to go and hold my baby. Yes, I knew I might wake him up, and yes, I might disturb his sleep and the rest of our night could be bad. But you know what, I did it anyway. I went into his room, got him out of bed and rocked him. I sat there praying for him and loving him more than I ever realized I could love. What a precious moment! And you know what, it didn't disturb his sleep in the slightest but it did give this Mama great joy and peace.
Philippians 4:6 & 7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Our Little Man

Our little man is such a joy to be around. He is the happiest, easiest baby I have ever been around.  I just love sitting on the couch watching him play. He will literally sit on the floor and play with toys all by himself for an hour or more.  Of course he prefers if he can still see me but I can get a little ways away to get stuff done around the house.

He also loves walking around in his walker.  His walker has a little play thing in front that plays music.  It gets a little old but sometimes I find myself singing the songs even when its not playing. Kinda sad.

He is starting to try to crawl, pulling his knees under him and rocking back and forth.  But when he tries to go somewhere he ends up on his belly.  I know it's coming soon but I'm enjoying our current stage of he stays basically where I put him.

Jake also loves his new swing Daddy and Papa hung outside for him.  He immediately loved it and somehow knew exactly how to hang on!

I just love this phase in Jake's life!