First Mother's Day

Today was a momentous day in the Daws home. Grant was dedicated to God, he turned 6 months old and it was my first Mother's Day.

Today Grant is 6 months old. I can hardly believe that my boy is half a year old and that he's both been with us for 6 months and at the same time I can't believe I've lived 29 years without him. He is my greatest joy.


This boy is worth it.

Every doctor's appointment over the 2.5 years we spent struggling for him. Each surgery I had. Every needle stick in my stomach and arms. Every painful procedure. Every tear. The countless fertility drugs that didn't work. Every single-no-every-single-month. The humiliation. The heartache. The hopelessness.

He is worth it.

Every single no and every single tear lead me to this baby. God had him waiting for me all along. It was he that I was supposed to have.

Sometimes I just look at Grant while doing something mundane like changing his diaper on any regular day and I'll just start crying. I longed for him so long that not one single day goes by that I take for granted what a miracle he is.

Today I celebrated my first Mother's Day. I got to hold my son in front of the church and dedicate him to the Lord. I didn't want to dissapear like in years past and I didn't have to fight back tears when unknowing strangers wished me a Happy Mother's Day.

I am Grant's mama.

At last, I'm someone's mom on Mother's Day.

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This touching entry was written by my mother-in-love, Sheilah Daws. She truly is the best mother I have ever known AND she is Grant's "La La".

I can’t believe our little girl has graduated college. Where did the last 22 yrs go. For that matter the last 32 years since God first made me a mom.

Deuteronomy 6 says we are to teach our children “at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again.” This indicates that we are to spend much time with our children. Don’t waste one moment with them because they don’t stop growing while we are busy doing other things.

I am so thankful for all the tea parties, for bedtime prayers and tucking in, for snuggle times we had, books we read and Bible stories we talked about.

I am thankful for all the tents we made inside with sheets and the huts we built outside, for nerf wars and sock wars.

I am thankful for the picnics and the lazy summer days swinging together as we pretended to take some sunglasses to the sun.

I am thankful for the pretending with dolls and GI Joes, for the hours watching Mister Rogers and eating peanut butter sandwiches...

To read the rest, click here:

Happy Easter!

Well, we got our first Easter family photo together. I hope to make it a tradition that we take one every year at Easter. It will be fun to see how Grant grows each year. It was such a beautiful day in the ATL. Do you know how hard it was to get him to look at the camera? Really hard.We had a great Easter serving in our church nursery called, "Waumba Land" and then went out to lunch at Cracker Barrel with a good friend.

And, Grant is still more interested in looking at the designs on his bib then eating the cereal, but I'm okay with that. Oh and have you tried these Bumkins bibs? They are fabulous! They are waterproof, rinse right off and dry in no time and they have this great velcro adjustable collar. AND you can just throw them in the washer. They are like a fabric material -- not that plastic, so you can even fold them up real easily. And they come is super cute designs. I am in LOVE with them!

5 Months Old

Grant is 5 months old today. As a celebration, we gave him rice cereal for the first time. After spitting it out at first, he seemed to love it. I used the Earth's Best Rice kind. I was really struggling giving it to him at first, because it meant he was growing up, but it turned out to not be too big of a deal.

We took video, but forgot to take a picture! So, these photos of his 5 month birthday will have to do. Happy five months, sweet baby.

Learning, Learning, Learning!

As a new mom, I am learning more each day as I try and teach Grant different things. It's all trial and error!

Right now, I am reading him four books about Easter I got in a bundle set from the Arch Books series - Jesus Enters Jerusalem - Arch Books, A Surprise in Disguise - Arch Books, Good Friday - Arch Booksand He's Risen! He's Alive - Arch Books

If you haven't heard of this book series, you must check it out. They are separate little books, each containing a Bible story. They rhyme and are short and he seems to love hearing me read them. I must confess, even I am learning the Bible stories better with the simple way they tell the stories.

I find it's best to read them when I am rocking him before his naps. It's a special time between us and is so much fun.

On this day...

On this day exactly one year ago I found out the news that absolutely changed my life forever...

March 9, 2008 - The two lines I waited an eternity to see

And today resulting in God's greatest gift ever to us...

March 9, 2009 - Grant William

Dreams do come true.

Couponing

I've had several friends ask me how I coupon and save money. I am new to this and still learning, but here it is in a nutshell:

1. Visit couponmom.com and read up on her system. If you need a specific item, you can look in her coupon database to see if there is a coupon that exists for what you need.

2. Buy 2-4 copies of the Sunday paper each Sunday there are coupons in it for the coupons. Publix and Walmart sell two papers combined for $2.50. Set-up a filing system. Remove the coupons and mark the Sunday date on them with a sharpie. Don't even bother looking or cutting them, just file them away. You want multiple copies of the paper and thus coupons so that you can stock up on items that are a good deal.

3. Visit www.southernsavers.com for coupon matching for your grocery store. She matches coupons with grocery and pharmacy sales for multiple stores. Fiddleedeedee is also a good resource for Publix. Coupon matching is when she takes for example, Publix's buy one, get one free deals for the week and matches them with manufacturer and competitor coupons. You can read their sites for the nitty gritty of the coupon matching and codes and things, but basically when you see RP 2/08 after the coupon mentioned, that means that coupon can be found in the Red Plum insert from February 8th. You would simply pull out that insert from your file, find it and clip it. You are not clipping coupons unless you need them. (All of the newspaper inserts have names, like Smart Source (SS), Red Plum (RP) or Proctor and Gamble (PG).)

So, here's an example: If Ragu is regularly $3.00, but is BOGO free this week, it is really $1.50 -- a good deal. Then, there is a 50 cent coupon in the coupons you have collected from the Sunday papers or online (she will give you the link to print it). This doubles to $1.00 at Publix because they double manufacturer coupons up to 5o cents. Now the Ragu is 50 cents. If by some chance Food Lion or another competitor has a coupon out for it (she will also give you a link to print the competitor coupon), Publix will also honor that. So, let's say Food Lion has one for Ragu for 5o cents. Now, your Ragu is free. If the Food Lion coupon was for $1.oo, you just made 50 cents and got the Ragu for free. Publix won't give you cash back, but you'd get 50 cents off something else in your order. This is how I am able to get stuff for free.

At Publix, you can use or "stack" a store coupon, manufacturer, and some of them will even let you use a competitor and store coupon and manufacturer. Check with your grocery store on their coupon policy. Every store and chain is different.

The key, and what I'm working on is stockpiling your pantry with things you'll use that you can get next to nothing, like the Ragu example. Then, you meal plan from your stock. I've read it can take a few months to get your stock up and see your grocery bill go down which is what I'm experiencing. I am still buying things I need right now, because I don't have a huge stock yet. I don't buy things I won't use unless they are free.

You get multiple copies of the paper so you can stock up on multiple jars of Ragu for example at a really good price, so you don't have to pay full price when you need it before they go on sale again. I've read that things go on sale in cycles. So you may not see the Ragu go on sale for another 6-8 weeks or something like that.

Here is an example of what I did to build my stock today. I want to buy organic baby food for Grant. Even though he is a couple months away from it, I am starting to stock up on it because it will keep and I can get it at a good price NOW.

Publix has Earth's Best baby food on sale this week buy one get one free for the 6 months and up jars. It is normally $1.09, so it is 55 cents this week. I got a coupon for $1.00 off 10 jars from Earth's Best (prompted by southernsavers.com -- she gave the link), and she (SS) also told me of a competitor coupon from Food Lion for $1.00 of 6 jars of Earth's Best. I used these coupons and was able to get each jar for about 30 cents or so. 10 jars would normally cost me $11.00, but I got 10 jars for $3.00. I saved $8.00.

I also got some of those Gerber Puffs they eat for 66 cents a piece. They are on sale this week, and I had a competitor coupon.

Also, watch out for competitor coupons like Rite Aid recently put out. They had one for $10 off a $30 purchase. Publix honored this for me. This is a huge savings and is partly how I got $50 worth of groceries for $8.70. Again, southernsavers.com prompted me to this. These sites do all the work for you.

As you can see, it takes a little while to get your stock built up and you may not see your grocery bill go down immediately, because you are still buying things you need right now in the mean time, but in the long run, it pays off!

So, in a nutshell:

• Visit the sites I mentioned and read up. They do a much better job of explaining!

• Buy 2-4 copies of the Sunday paper if there is a coupon insert. Southern Savers has a list of the Sundays there are coupon inserts.

• Buy things you will use based on the store's weekly sales and coupon matching (from the newspaper coupons and internet coupons) to build your stockpile.

• Meal plan from your stockpile.

Oh! For you Publix people, gather all the flyers in the foyer when you walk in the store. They are filled with Publix coupons and are valuable. Southernsavers.com will tell you when to use these too. Remember you can use store coupons with manufacturer ones and sometimes even competitors! Last week, Publix had a coupon in their foyer flyers which made nail clippers and tweezers free. Then, I had manufacturer coupons, so I "made" money!

It truly is so much fun to save money and once you get your system in place, it really shouldn't take too much time because these websites are doing all the work for you.

Start saving!

P.S. I am still learning the CVS pharmacy game. Maybe when I get good at it, I'll post about it. :-) But if you're interested in learning, southernsavers.com has a great tutorial on it.

3.5 Months Old

We had family visit us last weekend. It was so nice to see them and for them to meet Grant.

My sweet baby sister, Andrea, Grant and me

Life with Grant is more and more fun each day. He is 3.5 months old now and is smiling, cooing, "talking", bringing his hands together and drooling non-stop. Yesterday he had his stuffed Eeyore with him on his bouncy seat, and when it fell off, he cried instantly! It was the first time we have seen him react to a disappointment or case of cause and effect.

Grant and Daddy

Amidst our joy, I am still burdened and reminded of those who long for children each day. As sweet Sarah stated, infertility and the longing for a child is such a heavy sorrow and one on some days, as I can well remember, seems too much to bear. Infertility is such a polarity to manage. How do you surrender daily in the spiritual sense and leave it in God's hands, yet deal with the daily demands of medication, being attune to your body and all the intricacies that go along with infertility treatment? It's so hard. I continue to pray for all of you still hurting and longing and hoping.

This month, especially has brought back a lot of different memories and emotions. February was the month we found out about the UU, the month we would have had a baby if our first IUI would have worked, the month we had our first meeting with the adoption agency and the very last month of heartache before the dawn broke and we learned of expecting Grant.

We love this sweet boy. What a miracle he is!