Happy Half Birthday Emily!

Happy Half Birthday to You, Happy Half Birthday to You, Happy Half Birthday dear Emily, Happy Half Birthday to You!

Yep, Noah and I sang to you on your half birthday (Daddy was still in Chicago).  6 months baby girl!  You are getting to be such a big girl (in both size and development!).

17 lbs 9 oz and 26.6 inches--both in the 75th percentile.  Your head size is between 50-75th percentile.  You're still hitting all your milestones.  We're waiting for you to babble but for now enjoy hearing all your goos, coos, oohs, ahh, and lots of raspberries.  And the giggles--you laugh more and more.  I think it's my favorite sound!

The first day of your 6th month you finally rolled over from your back to your belly and you haven't stopped since.  In fact, now it seems like you've forgotten how to roll from your belly to your back.  You almost immediately roll over when we put you down on your back and then just lay there on your belly and get mad.  I can't figure out if you don't like being on your belly and can't get back over or if you are mad because you want to be on your belly but want to be moving.  If only we could peek into that little brain of yours. 

Lots of other big developments this month too--you started sleeping all the way through the night consistently(whoo hoo!!).  You go to bed between 6-7pm, I feed you before I go to bed around 10-11 and then you sleep till 6 or 7 in the morning.  Way to go!  I've been waiting for this one since July! You also started sitting up on your own--first just leaning over with your hands in front but have quickly moved to being able to balance ok on your own for more and more.  Still not ready to just be left alone sitting up (you topple easily) but you're getting better and better.

You also started some solid foods this month.  So far we've just done brown rice cereal, oatmeal, and banannas but you're doing well.  For weeks leading up to this you would stare intently and even try to grab at anything I was eating or drinking so by 5 1/2 months I decided it was time to let you give it a try.  I've already made some squash and sweet potatoes for you and hope to be able to continue to make at least some of your foods at home for you (just like I did for big brother!).

We've had some fun things too--of course this month included some big holidays and lots of family time.  It was great to have all the Tiltons and Whites together for your first Christmas.  We spent your first New Year's with the Smiths--you and Caleb stared at each other and weren't disturbed by the fireworks the Daddies and big kids set off at all.  (In fact the big kids were more scared than you!).  You spent some time with the Smiths too so we could go to a wedding and had your first time in the church nursery on Jan 1 when Daddy preached and then again on the 22nd when he was out of town.  We'll look to do more and more of this I think. 

You amaze us with new things almost every day it seems!  Happy Half Birthday little one!  Can't wait to see what this next half year brings!

And since I always have a hard time picking just one monthly photo, here are several to enjoy!

Remebering Great Grandma

Mike's Grandma (his mom's mom from Chicago) passed away on January 16th.  She'd been home under hospice care after choosing hospice over a major surgery to attempt to correct an intenstinal blockage.  She was at home with her family the day she died.  Mike, Brian, Vanessa, and their Dad made the trip up to Chicago for her funeral and for some family time.  They were there Thursday through Sunday that week.  We are thankful they were able to make the trip, spend time with family, and stayed safe while they had 8-9 inches of snow while there on Friday.

This is Grandma and Grandpa Swiderski at Mike's cousin Jennifer's wedding in 2004.

Though we missed him, the kids and I did well with Daddy gone for four days.  This was my first extended attempt at single parenthood and though I wouldn't choose it regularly, it went better than anticipated.  Thankfully the weather in Texas was nothing like the weather up north and we enjoyed 70 degree days giving Noah the opportunity to spend some time on the new playscape in the backyard.  We even managed an outing to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  We took these pictures there and sent to Mike to tell him we were thinking of him and missing him!

Cute little love bugs!

As Emily celebrated her half birthday (6 month post to come soon), we had a little sibling photo shoot.  Thanks Uncle Thomas for the super cute outfit Emily got for Christmas!  Noah LOVES his sister and loves to get his picture taken with her too.  He also LOVES dinosaurs and insisted that we get one with Emily and one of his dinos.  Such cute little love bugs!

 I don't remember exaclty what he was doing here but I know he was NOT biting her head, though that's exactly what it looks like.  I think he was laughing and trying to kiss her but it looks really funny.

Yum Yum!

After showing much interest in what we were eating and drinking these days, we introduced Emily to the world of solid foods recently.  The photos say it all.  Rice cereal, yum yum!



Look who's sitting up!

She still has a ways to go in terms of mastering balance and keeping this up for very long, but as you can see, she can hold her own at least long enough for Mommy to snap a few photos.  Way to go big girl!

Theology with a Three Year Old

I've had some interesting theological conversations with Noah recently. Yes, theology with my three year old.

It started a few weeks before Christmas. We were reading about Jesus' birth and he was looking at the picture in his book. He pointed to the shepherds and asked what they were doing and why did they come to visit baby Jesus. I told him they came to worship him. He asked why did they want to worship him? So I explained that they knew baby Jesus would be our Savior. Which prompted “What’s a Savior?”

So I explained Savior and why we even needed to be saved. Which led to talking about sin. He knew a little about the Easter story—Jesus died on the cross and came back to life again. I explained that Jesus had to die to save us from our sins. Trying to explain this age appropriately was more difficult than I expected. Each thing I explained led to more questions. We eventually ended up talking about the devil. Try explaining that in an age appropriate way that doesn’t freak him out and leave him with nightmares (did I mention this was right before bedtime?).

This is a concept I know we haven’t discussed before because honestly, I’ve just avoided it (again, not wanting to scare him). But yet, I want to be honest so I sat there trying to explain the devil. Of course this was on a Wednesday night so Mike was at youth group at church that night. I couldn’t even rely on my youth minister husband for this one!

I told him the devil is a really bad guy that likes to try to get us to do bad things and that when Jesus died, he went and fought the devil and beat him so that we could be saved from the bad things. He wanted to know what the devil looks like? In my head I thought, like a really mean ugly monster, but again, I didn’t want him to have nightmares so I just said I don’t know—which is true, because thankfully I’ve never seen him. I explained that he’s kind of like Jesus, we know he is real but we can’t really see him, so we don’t know what he looks like. Thankfully he accepted that answer. Then he asked what would the devil do to us? Again, I’m just sitting here trying to choose my words very carefully, wanting to give honest answers but also give him truth. I went back to just saying that the devil wants to try to get us to do bad things. But remember, Jesus beat the devil to save us. Then he stumped me with “How did Jesus beat the devil?” Good one, buddy. I have no clue. I did tell him I don’t know. He asked again and again and finally (thankfully) I steered him to another subject.

Later that night as we were praying, I asked him to tell Jesus what he’s thankful for (we do this as part of our bedtime prayer routine so it wasn’t a new question) and he said “Jesus, thank you for beating the debil (not a typo—he said debil, with a ‘b’)” So sute. And so true. Yes, Jesus, THANKYOU for beating the devil for me! How often do I think of it that simply, but really, that’s the best thing ever!

The next morning as soon as he got up he told Mike, “Daddy! Did you know Jesus beat the devil?!”

A couple weeks later we were reading a book about the Easter story. We were talking again about Jesus dying for us but that he came back to life again after 3 days. Noah wanted to know how Jesus could do that. We said “Because He’s really powerful!” It’s always interesting to see how his brain retains, processes and applies info. This was demonstrated a few days later.

I was holding Emily and Noah had been playing with some stickers. He put some on me, then wanted to put some on Emily. So nice of him to want to share with his sister. But I explained that stickers aren’t safe for her because she could put them in her mouth (like she does with anything she gets her hands on these days) and then she would choke on them. This led to the following exchange:

Noah: Yeah, and if she chokes on them, then she could die.
Me: Yeah, you’re right, buddy. And that would be bad, right?
Noah: Yeah. But Jesus could bring her back to life.
Me: Yes, but if she died, she would go live with Jesus in heaven and that’s good, but we’d really miss her if she wasn’t here.
Noah: No, Jesus would make her live again here because He’s really powerful!

Wow. Gotta love that child-like faith. I had a hard time arguing with him. I mean, he’s right. Jesus is powerful. And do I believe that Jesus could do exactly what Noah said, well, of course I do. But I did try to explain that yes, Jesus could do that, but that’s not usually how it happens here. I was expecting a “Why not?” but thankfully didn’t get that, because really, I’m not sure how I’d answer that one.

Makes me wonder what kind of discussions we'll have as he gets older. 

White Family Christmas

We spent most of Christmas day with Mike's family in Kyle.  The cousins had a great time playing together.  My parents and brother joined us there too.  We had a fabulous dinner and just an overall good time being together.

 The theme of Noah's Christmas this year was dinosaurs.  He got a bucket-o-dinos, a Dinosaur Train train set, and some dino books from the Whites which was in addition to other dino toys and clothes he'd already gotten from us.

 Emily, on the other hand, just wanted to eat all her presents.  Or really anything that got near her (don't worry, she didn't really drink any beer here).  Elmo's nose and eyes were especially favorites.

 Brotherly Love?

 Annual Gingerbread House decorating