Redesigned

I have wanted to get a custom look for my blog for a while now.  I've seen so many great looking blogs out there and they were my inspiration.  

So this weekend I sat down and figured blogger out and with the help of the "Ten Reasons" Digital Scrapbooking kit designed by Tracey Howard  at Scrap Orchard, I did it. 

I'm really happy with how it looks and the best part is that as Eli grows I can update the design.  And if we have more kids, I can add them.

Let me know what you think!

Mile of Dimes

It's March for Babies time again and I can't wait to walk with Doug and Eli in memory of Logan on April 30th! 

And we would love to have any of you join us as well.

This year our team is doing a Mile of Dimes fundraiser and while I'll also be raising money on my own, my efforts are focused on the fundraiser. 

In fact, thanks my Grandma, a wonderful aunt and my mom, I've already got a collection of dimes started.

The idea is to raise enough money to create a literal mile of dimes.  In case you're not good at that kind of math, it's a lot of dimes!  Almost 90,000 of them.

So if you have any spare dimes, or any money really, and you'd like to help out, let me know. 

And if you'd like to walk with us, you can click the button on my sidebar to sign up for our team.

Rough Week

Well, I knew it would happen and it finally did.  Last Tuesday Eli had his first fever.  Since he can't go to daycare with a fever and I had been up and down all night trying to help him feel better, I stayed home with him.  But after one dose of Tylenol the fever vanished and he did well the rest of the day, sleeping for most of it so I decided not to visit the doctor.  Wednesday went fine.  In fact, he rolled over for the very first time on Wednesday night.   But Wednesday night was rough and on Thursday the ladies at daycare mentioned how stuffy he was.  We were already aware and had been using a humidifier and sucking his nose but it seemed to be getting worse, he even started coughing pretty bad.  That night he slept in our room, sitting up in his bouncy seat because it was so bad. 

So on Friday morning I was convinced he needed to go to the doctor.  We got some amoxicilin for a possible ear infection and zyrtec because the doctor thinks he has allergies (which I also suffer with and have since I was a baby).  Saturday was no fun either but finally yesterday morning he woke up feeling much, much better.  He even watched some of the Daytona 500 with Doug, showed Doug how he could roll over, and played in his walker.

I am sooo glad he is feeling better and I hope we stay away from sickness as much as possible.  It is just no fun having a sick baby who is looking to you to make it better, but unable to tell you what is wrong :(

Love

Love is so hard to put into words.  It's one of those things you know when you see, or in this case feel. 

I've felt the most love in "the calm after the storm" moments.

At my wedding, things were crazy hectic.  I remember at one point calling my mom and asking her to bring my dress.  She was busy putting together the wedding cake.  This was just minutes before the photographer was supposed to start taking pictures.  But after the ceremony was over, while we were taking the last few pictures, with just our family and closest friends, the love that filled that room was amazing.  And not just between Doug and I.  Love between our families, our friends.  At that moment, the rest of the world disappeared and love was all there was.

Logan's life was surrounded by love.  But the "love" moment I remember the most happened when he died.  When Doug and I walked into that room the nurses were working on him in a frenzied pace.  There could have been one of them or 10 of them, I can't really say.  But they all loved that little boy and us at that moment and I knew they were doing everything they possibly could.  The next thing I knew they were asking if we wanted to hold him and as they placed him in my arms the world faded away and it was just Logan, Doug and me, loving on each other in every way we knew how.

And then came Eli's birth.  Again, it was a very hectic scene.  The nurse was trying to have me wait until my doctor got there but Eli had a different plan.  When he was born the nurses flew into action.  I couldn't touch him enough.  The nurse was slinging Eli around, giving him shots and a bath, getting his footprints and his stats.  All the while, my doctor and nurse were working to get me cleaned up.  And then...

Then there was a time when they brought Eli to me, my nurse dimmed the lights, and everyone left the room.  It was just our little family and I would swear that the love that was present in that room was a solid, touchable object.  We may have been that way for 5 min. or 5 hours, I can't really say.  But I know that I will never forget that moment and I will never forget that love.

The Bible says that God is love and so I know that God was in that room with us and I'm pretty sure he was holding Logan's hand.

4 Months

Eli turned 4 months old last Friday and we had his checkup yesterday.  He now weighs 14 lbs. 12 oz. and is 25 3/4 in. long (that's skewed because the nurse didn't have him laying straight when she marked the lines but it's close).  It's so amazing to me how big he's getting!

We are now slowly starting some new foods.  Last night we added apple juice to his cereal instead of milk and he really enjoyed it.  He also ate WAY more than I expected him to.  I thought I had made too much so that I could get an idea of how much he would really eat, but he ate every bite.  That may be because we have discovered that I'm a little behind on my milk production.  But thankfully, we're taking action on that problem and hopefully I'll have more than enough milk for my big guy soon.

Eli also has his very first tooth beginning to poke through.  I felt the very top breaking the surface yesterday and asked his doctor if it was possible for him to be teething so soon.  He said it was but seemed very skeptical until he put his finger in Eli's mouth and felt it too. 

In other news, Doug and I reached a milestone that we have been working toward for a long time now.  As of this morning we are (kinda) debt-free!!  Okay, we do still have debt but no more credit cards, store charges or anything like that.  Sure, we'd love to eventually live without a car payment or a mortgage (and we are working towards that day) but for right now, we're just thrilled to be where we are.  There was a time when we couldn't pass up a good "12 months same as cash" offer, but no more.  We've both worked very hard to get where we are financially and even though we've slipped (and probably will again in the future), we're changing our way of thinking and our financial future and it feels great!

Flowers for Logan

I don't know if you know this, but keeping clean, season-appropriate flowers/decorations at a cemetary is an expensive task.  If you go to a florist you can easily spend $50 - $75 on one pot of flowers.  We like to change Logan's flowers frequently so you can imagine how quickly that would add up.  So in the past 2 1/2 years I've been learning how to make my own arrangements.  Lucky for me, my mother-in-law makes silk arrangements and my mom has a good eye for design so with their help, I've made a few arrangements.  But I have to be honest, I haven't been completely satisfied with anything I made.  That is until this past weekend.  As much as I like the arrangements I made in the past, I always felt like they were missing something.  But I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.  Here's the arrangement I made on Saturday night.

I love the colors and the best part is it took less than an hour and the total cost was probably under $20! 

I also made an arrangement for the house that I've been talking about doing for probably a year.  It's simple, but I really like it.

Other than my latest floral arrangements, I haven't had much time for crafting but I hope that changes soon.  I really need to get to work on my scrapbooks and I have some plans (in my head at least) for a head start on next years Christmas cards.

In other news, 3 years ago today I got my first positive pregnancy test.  One year ago tomorrow I got my second positive.  It's probably weird that I remember those dates so well, but I remember them because they are so close to my mom's birthday.  And so close to each other.  What a blessing we were given one year ago.  It has been a long year with a lot of panicky moments for me, but here we are with a healthy (almost) 4-month-old and I couldn't be happier!  I'll leave you with some of the latest pictures of our monster baby.