6 Months of Sweetness

My title is exactly how I would describe the last 6 months with Josiah. He really is such a sweet and happy baby. I love going to get him in the mornings, because as soon I walk in the room his whole face lights up! The only time he fusses is if he is hungry or he is overtired (which happens frequently on Sundays).

We took him to the pediatrician yesterday for his 6 month well check and he is doing great! He is in the 80% for height, but only the 33% for weight. Those cheeks sure do fool everyone! Developmentally, he is right on track. He is rolling over constantly and is sitting up well assisted, and can sit up briefly unassisted. Josiah has recently started to giggle and it is the cutest thing in the world!

Josiah has started to eat some food as well. I was very eager with Thomas to start solids, but I waited with Josiah because I learned how much extra work is involved with solids. My goal is to make most of his baby food, and so far I have been able to do it. He has to have prunes everyday, and I am going to attempt to puree prunes this week. If anyone has any tips on the best way to puree prunes, let me know! A book that has been very helpful in making baby food is Super Baby Food.

Six months is also a little bittersweet for me too, because it means soon he won't sit still in my lap or want me to be held as much. These last six months have went by so quickly, and I know it will only be a blink of an eye and we will be celebrating his first birthday. I am mindful of how quickly the time goes and I'm trying to be purposeful in enjoying all these precious moments with my baby.

Here are some recent pictures of our sweet baby:

Josiah with Jim, my step-dad, at our Christmas celebration.

Adorable little face!
Brothers holding hands!

Looking so big in his high chair!

Giving So Others May Know

Lottie Moon's Mirror at our church Christmas 2008.

Lottie Moon is a familiar name for anyone who has ever attended a Southern Baptist Church. When I was little, I thought she was a lady the church gave money to because she was poor! Have you ever seen Lottie's picture? She looks like she could use a little more to eat - at least to a 6-year-old! For all my readers who are non-Southern Baptists, Lottie Moon is our annual offering for international missions. It is always at Christmas, which brings me to the point of this post.

Many church members would probably say that we should have the Lottie Moon offering at some other time, because Christmas is such a busy and expensive time of the year. While both of those things are true, I believe that Christmas is the best time to collect an offering for our international missionaries. As Josh explained Sunday morning before our Lottie Moon offering, "At Christmas we celebrate Christ taking on flesh and dwelling among us. Our international missionaries do the same thing as they take on the culture, language, and country of the people they are dwelling among. They illustrate with their lives how Christ came and took on our culture and language and left the glory of heaven to save us from our sin." Praise God for the over 5,000 SBC missionaries who are dwelling among a foreign people, often in dangerous circumstances, so that all people may hear the good news!

A common excuse for not giving to Lottie Moon is, "I don't have the money right now. I have to buy gifts for my family." Josh and I both know the temptation to not give (or not to give sacrificially) because you want to have enough money to give to your family or do something else, and so we decided to plan to give to Lottie Moon. At the beginning of the year, we talk about what amount of money we want to give to Lottie Moon in December, and then we budget for it every month. We have a savings account and part of what we put into savings every month is a portion of what we will give to Lottie Moon in December.

If you are Southern Baptist and don't give to Lottie Moon, I encourage you to give so that the gospel can go forth to those who have never heard. There are so many people in the world who have never heard the name of Jesus. They don't know what Christmas is or if they do, they don't know why we celebrate this holiday.

If you are Southern Baptist and do give to Lottie, but would like to give more, I encourage you to set a goal for what you would like to give next December and save for it all year. It isn't hard to give more, when you have saved all year.

Lastly, if you aren't Southern Baptist, I encourage you to find out how you can support missionaries your church or denomination sends out.

For those missionaries who read my blog, I want you to know how much I appreciate you and thank the Lord for you. While we may sacrifice a little to give to support you, you and your families sacrifice everything to go and share the gospel with those who have never heard. May the Lord bless you greatly as you continue to serve Him and share with all nations!

Like Father, Like Son

Thomas wants to be just like his daddy! Josh has an old electric razor and when Thomas found it, he decided he needed to shave as well. The only thing missing from this picture is Thomas' sing-song voice, "Shave, shave, shave..."

Oh, and the water all down his shirt is because of one of his other hobbies: playing in the sink!

Fruitful?

There is a debate that wages in many Christian circles about Psalm 128:3: "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table." Other verses included Genesis 1:28 and Psalm 127:3-5. Some think this mean that we have as many children as the Lord gives us (no family planning), while others believe the Lord commands us to have children, but leaves the number to our discretion.

This is a topic that I have prayed about and read a lot about it too. Recently, a friend and I began reading Mark Chanski's book Womanly Dominion: More Than A Gentle and Quiet Spirit and he comments on this verse:

Fruitfulness varies in its manifestation among different plants. A fruitful grape-vine will sport many, many clusters of grapes. On the other hand, a productive pumpkin vine may only generate four or five pumpkins. A farmer is very thankful if a single cornstalk produces two ears! Fruitfulness will vary from womb to womb, family to family. Revelation, providence, liberty and wisdom must be conscientiously blended. p. 32 (emphasis mine)

Let me be up front: Josh and I plan to have a big family, Lord willing. We do believe that children are a blessing from the Lord, but we also believe that family size is an area the Lord gives us wisdom to make decisions. I applaud the Duggars for raising 18 children (soon to be 19), but there is no way that Josh and I could afford to have that many children. They spend $3,000 a month on groceries alone. For many people, including us, we would spend our entire paycheck feeding that many children, and how would we clothe or provide a home?

There is the argument that God will provide for all our needs, and I believe that fully, but also believe that he gives us wisdom and discretion about family size. A family who has a disabled child has to spend much of their time and money to provide for that one child and may be physically or emotionally unable to care for more children. A family who is in ministry and dependent on the support of others has to decide how big of a family they can support.

Chanski's thoughts on procreation and fruitfulness were very helpful to me in explaining why it is okay for families to make a wise and prayerful decision about family size. Each plant is different in its fruitfulness and the Lord made us that way. Families come in all sizes and that is okay.

A caveat: I do believe that Scripture is clear that Christians are to have children unless they are physically unable. It is a sin to willingly remain childless because God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. And our American culture views children as a hindrance instead of a blessing as anyone can clearly see in how available abortions are here.

There is much more that I can say about this issue, but I will stop for today. What are your thoughts on this topic? I'm sure some of you disagree and I would love to hear your feedback. Maybe what you say will give me a topic for another day.

Adorable

If this little face doesn't make your heart melt, then nothing will! How thankful I am for my sweet baby Josiah.

Eating The Elephant

One of the recommendations in Shopping For Time is to take small steps in completing a major project or "eating the elephant." I will admit that this is a hard step for me. My desire is to complete a project in one sitting, but with two small children who need my constant attention that is not possible. Let me clarify: it isn't possible with a two-year-old who is curious about everything and always wants to "help." Lately, instead of tackling a daunting task, I have put it off because it can't be done at one time.

I was encouraged after reading the book to begin doing a little each day to complete a project that I have put off. We have a bookshelf in our office/playroom area that is very disorganized because I'm not sure what to do with everything. We have another huge bookshelf in Thomas' room that covers an outside door and while it is somewhat organized, many of the books/picture albums need to be moved or rearranged. See what I mean by not wanting to tackle this task?

After sitting down and thinking about it, I realized that before I began rearranging and organizing, I have to find something to do with my many Southern Living magazines (have I ever mentioned how much I love that magazine?). I looked online for magazine holders, but I never could find anything I liked. Finally, I got the brilliant idea to look through all the magazines and cut out the articles I want to keep and recycle the rest of the magazine. I'm sure many of you would have come to that conclusion way before I did!

Right now I'm in the midst of sorting through magazines and it has been a lot of fun. The great thing about cutting out the articles is I might actually cook some of the yummy recipes instead of reading the magazine and saying, "Oh, I'll have to cook that some day," and never looking at it again. Now I have to find a place to store all the recipes, house decorating tips, and fun places to travel.

This elephant (organizing bookshelves) is going to take a long time to eat, but it will be done someday...actually, I'm setting a goal for completion by the end of January. Here is a before look at the bookshelf in the office/play area.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was a daunting task! And just a side note: that plant on top of the bookshelf is the only one in my house and it was given to me when Josiah was born - 5 months! If you know me, then you know I have a very brown thumb; I kill everything. One time I even killed a tree by drowning it in water, but that is another story!

Learning & Growing

I realized that I haven't given any updates on my boys lately. So here goes...

Thomas - His vocabulary has exploded over the past two months. I really wasn't worried that he wasn't talking in complete sentences because everyone I have talked to said, "Wait until he is two and he will surprise you." He definitely has surprised us at the things he is able to say now. I love how he says some words such as "football." It sounds more like "futeball." I'm always amazed at how observant he is when he sees an object and knows the word. For example, Josiah has lots of bibs and outfits with a football somewhere on the outfit and Thomas immediately say, "Mama, Jo has a football!" He gets so excited about it and it is so cute!

We are also in the midst of potty training and it is going surprisingly well. I really think bribery in the key. Here is an example of our conversation:

Thomas: "Mama, I have to pee-pee."

Mama: "Okay, let's go to the potty."

Thomas: "More candy! More candy!"

Yes, he has it figured out that when he goes to the potty candy follows. He also tried to use this the other night at dinner. He didn't eat much dinner, but of course he wanted a cookie. We told him he had to eat more dinner to get a cookie. It was only a moment later he told us he needed to go the bathroom - coincidence? I think not!

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Josiah - My sweet baby boy is now 5 months old! He is so sweet and smiley and just a joy to be around. He is regularly rolling over and reaching and grabbing things. Josiah loves his big brother and if Thomas is in the room, he is watching him.

We just went to a four hour schedule because he is such a great napper and sleeper. Most of his naps are between two and two and a half hours. He is sleeping around 12 hrs at night and this mama is so happy to be in bed by 10pm every night!

For now, he is still fully swaddled for naps. I honestly thought he would not need or want to be swaddled by 5 months, but he really likes it. At night, I put him in a sleep sack and because he sleeps sounder at night he doesn't have to be swaddled.

Here he is a couple of weeks ago napping:

Yes, he is as sweet as he looks. I'm so blessed!