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!

New Discoveries

Grant has recently discovered his tongue, although I couldn't get a picture of it. It is so fun to see him discover new things as he grows. He'll stick it in and out of his mouth countless times, just fascinated with it.

He has also discovered his hand. I caught him yesterday just staring at it. Oh the things we take for granted! It is such a joy to watch him learn and grow.

One of my favorite things is to sing songs to him, especially ones with scripture in them. I even make some up sometimes. A scripture verse will pop into my head like, "Taste and see that the Lord is good, " when he is sticking his tongue out and I'll just make up a song with the verse or I'll put on my favorite songs from Steve Green's Hide 'Em in Your Heart Vol. 1 CD. This is a CD filled with songs with scripture straight from the Bible in them just for kids. Instilling the scripture into Grant is very important to me and these songs make it so easy for me to remember them too! Thanks to my mother-in-love, Sheilah at Train Up The Child for telling me about these songs. She is the greatest teacher of preschool children I have ever seen.

As I was singing to Grant while changing his diaper the other day, I became overwhelmed and teary just thinking of the blessing and answer to prayer he is. What fun he is to teach each day and how grateful am I that God would entrust me with his care.

Just Plain Grateful

I sent my fertility doctor a birth announcement with a little note about how everything turned out and got a nice phone message and letter in the mail from him to Grant stating how excited he was about his arrival and how happy he was for us. I thought it was neat that it was addressed to Grant and that I can put it in his baby book.

I was able to talk with him a few minutes today on the phone and he again let me know how excited everyone was for us. The coolest part was that he had someone walk in today with a unicornuate uterus and he was able to give them hope because of our story. That made me feel so good inside because he wasn't able to do that for me. He only had horror stories to tell of women going into labor at 18 weeks and scary studies from Finland, but now he'd had a patient that he knew and had made it.

I am so, so grateful that today a woman was given hope because of what we went through -- that maybe she will replay our success over and over in her head when she is fearful because of the statistics. I wish I could have hugged her myself and shown her Grant. It warms my heart to think that she walked out of there full of hope and not despair and once again makes what we went through worth it all over again.

Minivan Momma

Josh and I recently purchased a 2006 Honda Odyssey! Our beloved 1996 Toyota Avalon's transmission finally gave out again at 281,000 miles. I love this car and will miss it so much! I would have driven it another 100,000 miles if she would have let me!

We love our van and are proud to say that we saved up and paid cash for it. Here's a huge thanks to Dave Ramsey and The Total Money Makeover book which helped us to get out of and stay out of consumer debt. We heard Dave speak several years back and his principles have changed the way we spend and save money. It was literally life changing for us.

Here is Grant's (and our) new ride!

Grant's Portrait

We had the pleasure of working with Amber Castleberry from www.ambercastleberryphotography.com to have Grant's portrait made. He was almost 3 weeks old when these were done. She is amazing! We are so glad to have captured these moments.

8 Weeks and an Update

Grant is 8 weeks old now and is growing so fast -- right before my eyes. I swear sometimes I get him up from his nap and he's grown. He is full of rolls and even a double chin! He has had a time with acid reflux. I hate seeing the poor baby in pain.

He is still eating every 3 hrs and then we let him wake on his own at night. I am proud to say that earlier this week, he slept from about 11pm - 6:30 am two nights in a row! He sometimes fusses inbetween, but he went without eating. The first night, I kept waking up, looking at our video monitor making sure he was okay!

He goes for his 2 month vaccinations this week. I can't wait to see how much he weighs. I am guessing 13-14 pounds. He's heavy!

Sweet puppy outfit.

Loves his pacifier.

With Daddy, quite possibly his favorite person on Earth.

I love kissing on him. He probably won't like it forever though, so I steal a lot of kisses now. I'm so grateful to finally be his Mommy.

And finally, here he is with a Darth Vader onesie on that says "My Dad can beat up your Dad." Grant is very alert and bright-eyed these days. He makes tons of cooing noises and smiles all the time. So much fun!

Christmas!

This is a long overdue post! We had a great first Christmas with Grant. He is the best gift we could have ever received this Christmas and is such a delight.

Here he is with Santa.

Santa's Little Helper

With Pop and LaLa

With Mommy and Daddy

And last but not least, here he is with the toy gun Uncle Jer gave him. I think this picture is too cute! Now only if he had a cowboy hat.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We celebrated with Josh's family and had our traditional Christmas ham and punch and soaked in the blessing of this bundle of joy. What fun it was to celebrate this year with our long prayed for baby.

Grant even gave us a gift. He slept from about 11pm - 5am on Christmas Eve!