Only child

Ava has gotten to enjoy being an only child for the past several days. Cade has been visiting his grandparents in a neighboring state since Friday. So he's gotten to enjoy being an only child there, as well.

I've missed my buster brown, but it's been so great to have some extra one-on-one time with baby girl (and the extra sleep has been appreciated as well...Ava and I both have gotten more sleep than when Cade is here :). And I know Cade has enjoyed the time with his grandparents and great-grandparents. It's a win-win :)

But he's headed back as I type, and I am definitely ready to see him!

Here's Girlfriend this morning...she's so stinkin' cute (she was trying to peek around the phone so she could see me :)

A sitter!

My big girl (she's not big, she's not big, she's just a baby, she's just a baby!) is sitting by herself now. She's been working on it for a couple of weeks now, but just last week is when she really started being able to sit for longer periods of time without toppling over. And even sometimes catch herself when she does topple over.

There's still a crazy 2 year old who runs around and makes her fall over, but hey, what are big brothers for?

So far, it seems girlfriend is on just a little slower timeframe than Cade was (and that's totally fine by me!). He started sitting at 6.5 months, she was 8. His first 2 teeth were at 6 months, her first one was around 7.5 months and now she's working on the second one. We waited longer to start her on solids, so she nurses a lot more than he did at this age.

It's only been 2 years since we did this with Cade, but it's so amazing how differently we parent her. You learn a lot with your first. Some of the things we changed are simply out of necessity (Ava doesn't spend lots and lots of time playing on the floor because there's a rowdy 2 year old running around...Cade did). Some things are different because I've done more research and reading (waiting to start solids a little longer this time). And some things are different because we know how quickly this phase passes by (I'm not setting a date for weaning her like I did Cade...even though she won't take a bottle and therefore has to be with me constantly). Oh, and she's a girl (which means we have a tendency to snuggle her and be gentle with her more than we did with Cade).

Snuggles

The boy is at preschool today, so it's just me and baby girl. She's still fighting a little bit of a cough, and she thinks she's big, so she doesn't want to snuggle like she used to. But last night before bed, we got to snuggle for a while, and she's being pretty snuggly again right now.

I love this girl.

Pictures

One of my goals this year is to document what's going on with my kiddos a little better. We'll see how well that goes :)

Today, we've been working on a little potty training. We've done this off and on for a while, so Cade definitely knows what to do. It's now just a matter of getting him to want to. We made it from waking up this morning until naptime in underwear with no accidents, with approximately 9 trips to the potty. Seriously.

Here are my 2 babies...Cade is watching some Diego-go as a reward and Ava is playing.

Two: A Testimony of Faith

God is good. We now have two job offers. Within hours of each other yesterday. Neither of which will require a drastic change in lifestyle. They're both pretty close to what Ryan is making right now, it's just divided up differently with benefits and such.

Now it's just a matter of deciding what is a better fit, and checking with God to see if He has a preference :)

Faith. I have several tangible reminders of God's faithfulness to me. Ava's very existence is one. This will be another. Friends, do not ever hesitate to step out on faith with God. He will catch you. Every. Time.

Stepping out on faith

If there has been a theme to my life over the past couple of years, it has been faith. And I wouldn't say that I have a hard time putting my faith and trust in God, so it seems reasonable to me that this journey isn't just for me. I'm supposed to share it. So here's the latest installment...

Two months ago, Ryan turned in a letter at his job lining out a list of things that are a part of their business practices that he feels are unethical. He did this after we had had many, many discussions about it over the previous few months, and MUCH prayer. It was basically, fix this, or I'm out. To their credit, they fixed much of what he felt was wrong. But not all. So a little over 6 weeks ago, he turned in his resignation. They worked out the details of this, and we are now down to his final 2 weeks. As in, today is Monday. One week from this Friday will be his last day. He doesn't have a job lined up.

Now let me back up for a second. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have NO income. Ryan's salary is the ONLY income we have. When we made the decision for him to resign (which, for the record, was ONLY because we felt that was what God wanted us to do), he had been talking to a company off and on for a couple of months about a position they were creating that they really wanted him for. But it was going nowhere fast. In fact, it's now been weeks since we heard ANYTHING from them. But that was it. We didn't have any leads on anything. We were just praying. And stepping out on faith.

Needless to say, this has been a little terrifying. We have some savings, but it's certainly not going to last very long. But we have continued to tithe and honor all the commitments we had made. In the meantime, as a family, we have been to the doctor more times in the past several weeks than we have ever before. And we're on insurance that is pretty terrible because his company just switched insurance and we had to switch doctors (that's a whole 'nother story that I am still pretty bitter about). So that's been fun, too.

So here we are. After Ryan let several of his contacts know that he was actively looking for a job, he's had several interviews. It's been pretty amazing to see God working in all of this. Please pray for us, especially this week. We expect to hear back about two jobs this week.

Stay tuned for an update!

Cloth Diaper Giveaway

So, I've been slightly addicted to entering giveaways for the past year or so. I haven't been able to do it as often as I would like since I've been juggling two little darlins, BUT I've managed to win four giveaways in the past 2 weeks! Just wanted to share about a giveaway event that is coming up that includes lots of cloth diapers! :)
Check out Life With My Littles and One More Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starting next week for their Newborns and Cloth Event!