Various and Assorted

I did enjoy the "bloggy break" last week and was certainly busy getting ready for Thanksgiving, taking care of Benjamin, and enjoying Mom and Dad, but all week I kept thinking "I should blog about that ..." I guess I'm addicted :)

The picture above is Benjamin enjoying resting in his Bug-a-roo sling. I joke that this sling must have "magic dust" in it because it calms him like magic! He's slept completely through church services, prayer meetings, and even a pretty rowdy game night we had for Will's birthday. On this day, I was trying to get some cooking done, but the little man was fussy - Mommy had the answer! just put him in the sling - I did end up getting icing on it, but hey, the cookies got iced! :)

When preparing food for Mom and Dad's arrival, I realized it was the first time I had really cooked since Benjamin was born! (almost 7 weeks!) Sure, I had defrosted meals from the freezer, or mixed up some cornbread to go with soup, but, thanks to people all over the country, we had food that lasted almost two months! So, a HUGE THANK YOU to all who sent food - our friends from our church here, our Northbrook friends in TN, and of course, my mom who made sure the freezer was stocked :)

However, I did miss cooking and baking. So, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, as Mom and Dad were making their long drive up here, I got busy in the kitchen! (I could either have cooked or cleaned, and I would so much rather cook :) I made cheddar corn chowder, pumpkin cookies, and orange oat scones.

Don't they look yummy? The texture of the scones didn't come out exactly right, but i thought they tasted good - everyone else's comment about them was "hmm...interesting..." so try the recipe at your own risk :) You can find it here. (I replaced the dried currants with chocolate chips :)

Here are links to the other recipes as well (which everyone loved and we would highly recommend)

Cheddar Corn Chowder (I used a whole pound of bacon and 4 cans of corn)

Pumpkin Cookies (I doubled the cinnamon and nutmeg)

As Thanksgiving was approaching, I did struggle a bit with how far away we are from our families. And it didn't help to look at friends' pictures on Facebook of their babies with all their grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., and to know that Benjamin has only met one set of grandparents so far and neither of his aunts or his uncle ... so sad!! I just felt very far away. I know New York State isn't the moon, but sometimes it seems like it might as well be.

It happened that this was also the day I was planning to do my marathon grocery trip to prepare for Thanksgiving. We were planning to make Paula Deen's corn casserole, but needed Jiffy cornbread mix, which I've never been able to find here, so Mom has brought me several boxes to stock our pantry. Anyway, to make a long story short (as my dad would say) guess what I found at the grocery store???

I guess it really is "America's Favorite!" Maybe God knew I just needed one little thing to make me feel not quite so far away.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! I've taken a "bloggy break" this week in order to soak up every possible minute with Mom and Dad who graciously drove up to celebrate Benjamin's first Thanksgiving with us! We had a wonderful time and were all sad to part again.

Our time was mostly spent enjoying Benjamin, resting, and of course, cooking and eating! All of us (all four adults anyway :) took turns concocting delicious foods for our Thanksgiving feast - we enjoyed Dad's special citrus-infused turkey and homemade cranberry sauce and Mom's amazing chicken-and-dressing (I paid careful attention so that I will be able to take up this torch :) Will made corn casserole (thank you Paula Dean for blessing us with that recipe!), and the meal was rounded out with green beans, coleslaw, deviled eggs, and sweet potatoes, with pecan pie and pumpkin cookies for dessert.

We agreed that it was our family camping experience which allowed us to prepare such a magnificent meal in such a small kitchen :) As we enjoyed the fruits of our labor, Benjamin slept soundly through his first Thanksgiving dinner...



Each year, celebrating Thanksgiving reminds me of the multitude of things I have to be thankful for, but this year, I have been especially overwhelmed by God's graciousness to us. Last Thanksgiving was such a special holiday, with sweet memories of harvesting thousands of pecans in our backyard, soaking a 20 lb. turkey in a 5 gallon bucket in the basement overnight , and a table FULL of food to share with Mom, Dad, and Mattie. But if you had told us last year how different our lives would be in just twelve short months, I don't think we would have believed you. We had a vague idea that change was coming ... of course Will would be graduating, and we were wanting to have a baby, but holy cow! God has been faithful in each and every detail - a healthy pregnancy, Will's job, a (relatively) smooth cross-country move, the blessings of church families who have stood beside us both in TN and now in NY, families who have supported us in countless ways, and of course, an absolutely beautiful baby boy (who is now sleeping through the night pretty consistently!!)

There just aren't words to express how thankful I am for all He has done!

The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad!
Ps. 126:3

yay for video!

Today, we discovered how to take short videos with our digital camera, upload them to our computer, and (hopefully) to our blog! :) Of course, Benjamin can be doing a ton of cute things (he's been smiling at us this week!) and then as soon as we get on the webcam with grandparents, or get out the camera, he decides to get all quiet - or start fussing! Such a little boy, I guess, not wanting to show off for the paparazzi!

But here is our first experiment with posting video to our blog ... to any of you from Tennessee who have worried about my losing my Southern accent since we've been up here in "the North" this video will definitely put your minds at ease! Just so ya know ... all the antics in this video were for the goal of getting that elusive smile! so precious!

One Thousand Gifts (Labor and Delivery Edition)

Ever since we got home from the hospital over a month ago (crazy how time flies!), I've been wanting to document all the ways, big and small, that God showed his faithfulness to us during the journey of Benjamin's birth. I've been learning a whole new way to manage time in the little 1 hr. segments I get these days, so that's my excuse for why this took so long! Unfortunately, I already feel those details getting foggy in my sleep-deprived brain. So tonight, while Will is at a Bible study and Benjamin tucked cozily in his crib, I find myself reflecting on October 8, 2009...

40. Incredibly meaningful times of prayer and Bible study that whole week leading up to Benjamin's birth... the Holy Spirit truly interceded for me and led me to Scriptures that I would be clinging to for days and weeks to come.

39. A positive and reassuring Dr's appt. that morning - he truly listened to our concerns and took the time to pay attention to the particularities of our situation. Doctors always seem so busy and rushed - I knew it was a complete answer to prayer that he stopped for us, so when he made the decision to send us to the hospital to be induced, I was able to be at peace about it.

38. Weeks before, I had been doing some reading and research about the drugs commonly used for induction, and had decided that should I need to be induced, there was one particular drug which I felt most comfortable with using. God was faithful to give me boldness in discussing this with the doctor, and the dr. consented to work with me in that area.

37. That one dose of one drug did the trick! Contractions started coming hard and fast within an hour or so, and I didn't have to receive any other medications to move my labor along.

36. An amazingly fast labor and delivery - I had contractions for about 6.5 hours and pushed for only 15 minutes before our precious Benjamin was born!

35. The strength to continue through the labor and delivery without an epidural - I know the only explanation is that God was there!

34. An incredibly supportive husband who was present with me through the whole journey and very attentive to my needs.

33. A wonderful nurse whose shifted lasted from 7 pm to 7 am, so she was able to be with us through the major portion of the labor, during delivery, and throughout those crazy early morning hours after Benjamin was born.

32. A medical staff who was incredibly sensitive to my severe peanut allergy (I believe this was spearheaded by our angel of a nurse listed above). Their concerns about my exposure to people who might have had peanuts led them to allow us to stay in our delivery room the whole night and next day after Benjamin's birth, and then move to a private room in the birthing center where we had wanted to be all along.

31. A healthy, safe, and beautiful Benjamin in our arms after the whole thing was over! Because I had to be induced, I was on constant fetal monitoring throughout labor. Even though this wouldn't have been my choice (I had envisioned being free of such "hindrances of modern medicine" as I labored), I distinctly remember being able to hear the rhythm of Benjamin's heartbeat and how reassuring that was to me.

I still look back and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was present with us in every detail. My prayer is that this experience will stregthen my faith and my confidence that, yes, God does move on behalf of His children. No, it doesn't always look like we had "envisioned" but it is always always always for His glory and our greater good.

Welcome Home!

Benjamin and I were so glad to welcome Daddy back home last night!! He left on Monday (his birthday - what a bummer!) for a business trip and was gone for two nights. Boy, was Mommy exhausted when he finally got home!

On Monday morning, Benjamin tried his best to convince Daddy to let him go along for the ride. He even proved that he could fit in Daddy's suitcase...

But thankfully, he agreed to stay here with me so I wouldn't be lonely (plus I reminded him that I am his sole source of nourishment :)

When Daddy got home, we had prepared a little belated birthday celebration, complete with French Silk pie!

But in the end, it was just so good to be together again!

Firsts

Yesterday was another day of firsts for the little one. First, he went to Wal-mart and Target for the first time (he slept through the whole thing, but he was there). Then, in the afternoon, he cried his first real tears! He was upset that I was changing his diaper before he got to eat, and when I looked down at him, his tiny little lashes were wet! Right after that though, I'm pretty sure he smiled at Mommy for the first time! Yahoo! :)

Then, the "first" that corresponds to the picture above ... he wore "real pants" for the first time yesterday (meaning not foot-ed pants). We went to a friend's house for dinner, and wore that precious little outfit! I really don't think I'm biased in thinking that, yes, indeed-y, he is the cutest thing ever! :)

Birthdays!

Today is Will's birthday!
Yesterday, Benjamin turned one month old!
Happy Birthday to my two favorite men in the whole world!

Go Bulldogs! (and our 1st snow)

This is Homecoming Weekend at Union!

I realized today that I have been at Union's Homecomings for the past 10 years straight, so part of me feels a little left out not to be there this year! In honor of the festivities, we put on Benjamin's "Young Alum" hat ... he's not too fond of hats...


... but I keep telling him he's gonna have to get used to them, because it's cold up here!! As a matter of fact, today we saw our first snow. It didn't accumulate at all, but it snowed pretty hard and pretty steady for a couple of hours. As much as I'm not looking forward to braving the winter in the Frozen Tundra, I really expected to write a post about our first snow in September or something, so I'm grateful that it waited until November!

The Top Five

The other day, I laid Benjamin down in his crib for a nap. He was pretty drowsy (he's so cute when he's sleepy!) and when I laid him down, he stretched both his little arms way up over his head and just stretched with the most content little look his face ... and then he let the loudest toot you can imagine coming from a little 9 pound body!!! :) I laughed so hard, and it made me begin pondering the following list...

The Top Five Reasons It's Great to be a Baby:

5. It's perfectly acceptable to wear your pajamas in public
4. One word - naps!
3. You can burp and fart as much as you want and people don't look down their noses at you - in fact, they celebrate with you! "Good job! I bet you feel lots better now!"
2. You know how great it feels to get your hair washed at the salon? Yup, you get to enjoy that with every bathtime.
1. No risk of performance-addiction - all you have to do is lay there and people think you're the greatest thing in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

Farewell to the diaper cake

Those who were able to attend one of our baby showers in TN may remember the beautiful diaper cake, created by our sweet friend MJ. She made it originally for one of my first showers, and it was such a hit, it ended up being a much-admired centerpiece at every shower after that. For those unfamiliar with "diaper cakes" it is made of real, usable diapers. wahoo! So, while my mom was here before Benjamin's birth, one of our projects was to deconstruct the diaper cake, converting it to usable diapers, ready to put on the little one when we got him home!

I am happy to say the diaper cake lasted exactly 15 days. I am told it was composed of approx. 170 diapers, so suffice it to say that our son can tear through some diapers!

But he sure is cute while they last... :)