Our Little Eater

Grace has found a new favorite place to hang out. The high chair. She is so happy when she's in it, probably because it's associated with eating. Bless her heart...she loves to eat. She made the decision of when to start solids an easy one! I was actually having a bit of an internal struggle about it. There are lots of opinions out there, often conflicting, about waiting until six months versus four months. It can really be quite confusing. Ultimately, you just have to go with your gut. Grace had met all the developmental criteria and was taking 8 oz at almost every feeding. She'd more than doubled her birth weight. She'd started waking up in the middle of the night, acting famished, after nearly two months of sleeping 10 hours straight. Her doctor felt pretty confident about the decision, and we love her, so we went with it. We had no issues with the tongue thrust reflex or gagging...she's just a natural! Since starting the rice cereal, we've also tried oatmeal cereal, sweet potatoes and bananas. She gets so excited. She opens her mouth and tilts her head up like a little bird. She can get pretty vocal when she wants more, too. Such a character...

Sleepover

This weekend was the last weekend of duck hunting season. Over the last few years, this hobby of our husbands has given Jess and me plenty of opportunity for girl time. Our weekends together used to consist of shopping, movie marathons, and nights out on the town. Now they involve trips to Babies-R-Us, taking care of the little ones, and maybe catching up on our shows. I have to say, though, that there is nothing sweeter than two freshly bathed kiddos just before bedtime!

Past:

Present:

Happiness

Love this smile...

"One Amazing Lady" cont'd

Grandma Coleman and me (during our visit in 2008)

Showing David the farm (during our visit in 2008)

Kimmie and me on the farm after the graveside service

The old church and cemetary...so still and peaceful

Kody, Kim, me, and Kyle at the church lunch

Grace having a fit about her new mink coat from Granzie

One of the old pictures on display

Dad, Uncle Mark, and Aunt Martha

The grandkids (minus Kevin & Jeff)

The great-grandkids (minus Piper & Asher)

Coy and Ella saying bye to Grace

One Amazing Lady

Over the holidays, we said goodbye to probably the most incredible woman I've ever known. My dad's mom...Grandma Coleman. She was 98 years old and had been in a nursing home for the last couple of years, so it was really a celebration of her life and her Lord more than anything. It also brought the whole family together again; something that (in recent years) has only seemed to happen at weddings being that my Aunt Martha's family lives in Indiana, my Uncle Mark's family lives in Florida, and we all live in Texas.

David and I came very close to not even going. The thought of flying, last minute, with a four month old and all our "stuff" just completely stressed me out. Not to mention it was going to be quite expensive! The thought of driving, 900 miles there and 900 miles back, made me equally nervous given the winter storm that had just blown through. Plus, I had no idea what to expect from Grace on a 14 hour road trip. In the end, the thought of not being there at all made me the most uncomfortable, so we drove. If I had any other car I might not have been okay with this option, but Volvo's are supposedly built like tanks. David assured me we'd be fine.

So, we left home at 9:30 Monday morning and got there around 12:30 that night (with the time change). We did hit some snow/ice in Oklahoma which slowed us down a bit, but we still made great time. Grace was an absolute angel. We only stopped four times to get gas or food and I would change her diaper, work out her little arms and legs, and nurse. The rest of the time I would pump and just feed her on the fly. I think she slept 10 of the 14 hours...and amazingly still went to bed when we got there. The drive back was essentially as easy.

Indiana was covered in snow, and Covington is such a small town that much of it was untouched. It was so surreal. We spent a good chunk of every summer up there on my Grandma's farm. My dad would help out on the tractor and we would help in the garden. Pretty much everything we ate was homemade and fresh from the farm...and all delicious. We went to church up the hill, where Grandma played the piano, and attended their Vacation Bible School. You can actually see the farm from where my Grandma and Grandpa (who passed away when I was little) are buried. We went by there after the graveside service and that's when it hit me. All our memories of Indiana are just that now...memories. We'll never really be able to explain it to our children and grandchildren, or even our husbands really. Just like it's impossible to explain our Grandma Coleman to anyone that didn't know her. How hard she worked, how totally unselfish she was, how she never said a bad word about ANYONE, just how she lived in general. She was the definition of 'one of a kind'.

Despite the circumstances, it was so nice to be with that side of the family again. It seems to be constant laughter when everyone is together. We also got to see several faces from around town and from the church; faces we'd grown up seeing every summer. It was pretty amazing how many people turned out, in the snowy weather, to pay tribute to a 98 year old woman. Everyone had a story, too. She'd taught them music, cooked them food, and so on and so on. I would give anything to go back and have one more day with her. As a child and teenager, you only see the small picture. It often annoyed me that I was there instead of home with my friends at the pool. Then as an adult, you let yourself get busy. I hadn't see her since Kimmie and I took our husbands up there in the Spring of 2008. I like to think she understood, though. Our last exchange, as we told her goodbye during that last visit, was this:

Me - "We're going to come back again really soon, Grandma!"

Her - "Well if I don't see you then, I'll see you sometime."

I look forward to it...

Oh, how times have changed

This is us two years ago at a big New Year's Eve bash in downtown Dallas:

And this is us at our big New Year's Eve bash in our home this year:

Does it make us officially lame that we were still scrambling for something to do the afternoon of the 31st? Luckily a few of our friends were in the same boat, so we ended up gathering at our casa for some pizza and dice (and a little beer). It actually ended up being a pretty humorous night! Plus, we didn't have to be on the road with all the crazies, pay a million bucks, or fight any crowds. Good times.

Brad's skeptical face

Jess & me being dumb

Taylor working on that crick in her neck

Our lovely attempt at a group shot

Such a big girl...literally

Well, today Grace had her four month well visit with Dr. Smith. We took bets beforehand on how much she would weigh as, despite starting off a little scrawny, she has definitely fluffed up over the past few months. I guess mommy knows best because I was one ounce off. She weighs 16 pounds, 3 ounces and is 24 3/4 inches long. That's 60th percentile in length and 80th in weight...oh, and she's 95th in head circumference. I hope that means she has a large brain! Dr. Smith told us to go ahead and start with the rice cereal, so we tried it out as soon as we got home. We weren't all that successful, but it was still fun...

Four Months

Our little Gracelyn turned four whole months old on Saturday. Sometimes I can't believe how fast the time has passed since she came along, then other times it seems like she's been here forever. Either way, she brings us more joy than we could've ever expected. She's got to be the happiest baby around...she smiles all day long! Here is the monthly chair pic:

Afterward, I realized I was missing the blanket and tried to take a few more. She was done though:

By the way, Saturday also happened to be her daddy's birthday. We celebrated with a yummy breakfast at Market Street and then sent him off to shoot ducks with his best friends. We didn't mind him leaving us for the day/night since he'd spent his vacation driving us across the country instead of hunting every day as originally planned. We even surprised him with some new gear from Cabela's when he got home. We just love him so much and feel tremendously lucky to have him as a father and husband.

Christmas Marathon 2009

Wow. Christmas was an absolute whirlwind this year! We spent Christmas Eve and morning with David's family, Christmas afternoon with my dad, and Christmas night with my mom. While it was a bit exhausting trying to figure it all out and prepare for everything, we were happy to be able to spend some time with everyone.

It snowed in Dallas on Christmas Eve for the first time since anyone could remember. Even so, Watermark services were packed! We could barely find a place to sit and even then it was in an overflow room. Todd's message about the redemptive power of Christ came through loud and clear though. Afterward we got to watch Jordan, Sam and Brooke open up "just one gift"...which quickly turned into ALL of them. Then we watched them play in the snow with their dad and Uncle David; even Grace got to participate (for a minute or so). It was all just too cute!

The next day we headed to Huntsville and hung out with Grandpa, Granzie, Kyle & Kody for a while. We had just learned a couple days before of my Grandma Coleman (my dad's mom) passing away. Obviously everyone was pretty sad about that, but it just made our time together all the more meaningful. One of the gifts from my dad and Terri - that they'd actually prepared before her death - was a framed picture, letter and prayer that my Grandma had sent Kimmie and me in 1992, after one of our summer visits. It was incredibly special.

By the time we got to Christmas #3, we were pretty drained. However, my mom had prepared an awesome dinner and everyone perked up when Gram (my mom's mom) announced that she had booked us all on a cruise for her Christmas gift. It's not until next January, so we have a whole year to look forward to it. That lady loves to cruise! We opened the rest of our gifts the next morning. GramB and Papa John had requested that we not buy them anything, but instead use any money we would have spent to do something nice for someone else. Sharing about those less fortunate made the gifts we'd just opened seem a bit frivolous; it was a sharp reminder of what's truly important. I really hope to do a better job of being a humble servant all year long, like my Grandma Coleman was, and not just at Christmas...