Winter's Last Hurrah?

The weatherman says meteorological Spring begins on Tuesday. As pretty a sight as this is, I hope it is the last time we wake up to the sight of snow for a long time!

Love this!

I like having growing things around me. I had some herbs growing in the kitchen but Piper knocked one on the floor and the other one wasn't getting enough light and had to be moved. So last week I was at Walmart and decided to look for something new for the kitchen, and I found this! It was only $8.94 with the pot, and it is as cute as can be!

The Golden Fern Club Moss is not quite a fern and not quite a moss, but it is a prehistoric fern relative. This unusual and exotic plant makes an excellent house plant in bright, indirect light. They love water so keep them moist at all times. The Golden Fern Club Moss is very easy to grow!

The Golden Fern Club Moss is properly classified as a Lycopod, a descendent of spore-producing plants that date back unchanged into the Permian (320 million years ago) age. Tree-like relatives of this plant group produced the great coal forests of the Carboniferous.

-from the Amazon product page

One Thousand Gifts

I am reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and it is one of those books in which you just can't stop highlighting things. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"I have just one word. A word to seize and haul up out of a terminal nightmare, a word for fearless dying, for saved, fully healed living, a word that works the miracle that heals the soul and raises the very dead to life...Eucharisteo."

"There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up."

"Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks - take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks - and He miraculously makes it more than enough."

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us?"

Snowy Morning

Spent the night in Remy's room so that I could be there to comfort him while he suffers through a double whammy of teething and a cold, and I woke up to the sight of snow on the mountain. I never get bored of the view.

Rainbow

We got a little rain here this afternoon, and after the rain...a rainbow! Or a fragment of a rainbow :)

Remy's 9 mo. Wellness Check

Remy turned 9 months over the weekend and on Tuesday I took him in for his 9 month check-up. His stats are as follows:

• Height: 29.75" Percentile: 90%
• Weight: 18lbs Percentile: 10%
• Head Circ.: 45.25cm Percentile: 50%

Did you choke on your coffee? Because if I'd been drinking coffee when the doctor told me those numbers I would have choked on it. Instead I just felt like I had been punched in the gut.

Remy's weight has been an issue since his 6 month appointment where we found out that even though he was quite tall, he was only in the 30th percentile for weight. I thought maybe feeding on a schedule was the problem since I had noticed that he seemed to prefer smaller, more frequent meals.

I decided at that point that I was going to go from feeding on a schedule to feeding on demand, and that he would have access to a bottle pretty much all day long (which has resulted in me washing a lot of unfinished formula down the drain!) In addition, of course, he has also been eating a serving of cereal, a serving of baby food, and a snack every day.

Well, apparently that has not worked out so well.

The doctor was very calm about the situation and said that it is normal to see a dip at this stage because the baby has recently become mobile and is burning many more calories than he used to. He recommended just adding more solids, but didn't say how much more...

So my new plan is one bowl of cereal, two jars of baby food, one serving of cut up fruit, and 1-2 cookies in addition to regular formula feedings (back on a schedule.) I'm also going to start letting him taste our food, at least the healthier stuff - I'll keep him away from Hamburger Helper and Chef Boyardee for now ;)

Any tips from the parents out there are welcome!

FEEEED MEEE!

Pictures from our Weekend at Red Rock

In the background you can see the mountains from whence the hotel gets its name.

With temperatures in the 60s it was too cool to swim, but a few determined tourists tried it anyway. Such a pretty pool, I was tempted to try it too.

The bathroom was awesome. It had its own TV and the tub was really deep (see baby for scale.) The walls, btw, are faux leather. Kinda funky.

Remy had fun exploring the room. All sorts of new things to bump his head on.

"You can have the pack-n-play, I will be sleeping here tonight." Nice try, buddy.

An awesome time was had by all.

It's Finally Here!

I have been looking forward to this for weeks! Tonight is the night my wonderful husband takes Remy and me to Red Rock Casino and Resort for a three night Valentine's getaway! The package includes movie tickets and a $50 dining credit, plus we have two buy-one-get-one-free coupons for dinner at the buffet. And the best part is the on-site day care! Up to five hours a day we can leave Remy with the nice ladies at Kid's Quest and just spend time with one another (and it's half price on Monday!) I plan to see a movie, go bowling, eat sushi, play a little slots and lay in bed watching Discovery channel :) No laundry to do, no cat litter to scoop, no pots and pans to scrub...it's gonna be heavenly!

(((HAPPY DANCE)))

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!
-Psalm 118:24

This is one of those verses that is a life line to me. When I feel my heart start to sink I try to remember to reach for it, and it lifts me up. Some days a little, some days a lot, but always enough.

This morning, however, I woke up before the sunrise with a baby who didn't sleep well the night before to get ready for a doctor's appointment I really didn't feel like going to and I was not in a mood to reach for a little gratitude. I wanted to pout and feel sorry for myself, and I thought I was justified in doing so...until I got to the doctor's office.

This was a diagnostic medical imaging center and the large waiting room was filled almost to capacity. Sitting there it suddenly struck me that in a group this size, in a place like this, there were probably several people waiting to find out if the tumor had grown or shrunk. Men and women wondering if they would still be able to work in 6 months, if they would still be around at all in 6 months. I realized once again what a spoiled brat I can be.

God, thank you for the days that you give us and for all the blessings, large and small, that they hold. Thank you especially for this day that I get to spend with my beautiful baby in this shining, desert city. I love you!

Eating a Cookie

I try to give Remy solids twice a day, once at lunch time and once at dinner time. (I think when he reaches 9 months we are going to add a solid for breakfast as well, but I am foggy on all that will probably need to consult a book or something.) Dinner is oatmeal and a serving of Gerber baby food, and lunch time it is a sippy cup of formula and some kind of finger foods. We were doing puffs, but then I introduced Gerber's arrowroot cookies and now he thinks puffs are good for nothing but the entertainment value that comes from shoving them over the lip of his tray on to the kitchen floor below. While he may be tempted to throw his cookies on the floor, they are just too yummy!

Remy's Favorite Spot

AM

PM

Today I'm posting photographic evidence of one of my parenting fails, so go easy on me! Remy loves to watch TV. My pediatrician said one hour a day was okay, so I let him watch 3 episodes of Backyardigans or Wonder Why? a day. That equals about 70 minutes of TV. The problem is that I also watch TV, and for more than an hour. Most of my shows he just ignores, but he goes bananas for the weather, lawyer commercials, and game shows. Total it all up (there are a LOT of lawyer commercials) and by the end of the day he has probably watched at least 2 hours of TV. This makes me feel like crap, but at the same time I am completely enchanted by the way he will shout back wordless answers to Super Why's questions, smile adoringly at the slime ball lawyers, or drop his jaw in shock at the sight of the weather map...he approaches everything, including tv, with such enthusiasm and delight, and it is hard for me to see that as a bad thing.

New Remy Video

I haven't posted a video in a while. I still take video of the little guy, but I usually do it for his own entertainment, and they are usually looong videos of him just grinning and trying to get the camera, not really suitable for posting, lol! But here is one of us playing a little peek-a-boo game. Check out the teeth and the hair! He is growing up so fast!

Sick Hubby

I've never seen Ross sicker. He has a recurring fever, nausea and vomiting, and has been in bed for three days. I asked him last night, "So, do you think it could be swine flu, or is it just regular flu?" He shrugged and replied, "for all I know, it's allergies."

If you don't know Ross well, then you might not realize that he is completely serious. One of his charming (slightly infuriating) quirks is that every single time he is sick he insists it is seasonal allergies. He treats every illness with generic Zyrtec.

Fortunately, even if he does think it is allergies, he is letting me give him Dayquil and follow him around with Clorox wipes.

Good Omens

Most of my plants have died and the remaining three are not doing well, but this week the rose bush and the gardenia have managed to produce small blossoms to remind me that spring will come again!