Thankful...

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Today, I took E to her 18-month check up and she's doing very well. The dr thinks that she should be talking more, but I know that it will come with time and then she'll never be quiet. She was 24 lbs and 36? inches. Her height is above the 98th percentile and her weight is up to the 40th percentile. She's finally putting on some weight now that we aren't playing outside so much. (Unfortunately, so am I!) But, I'm very thankful that she's such a healthy, happy little girl.

I'm also thankful that we won't spend our Thanksgiving holiday traveling. We get to stay 'home' and yet still see all of our family! That is such a blessing. No more 2 days here and 2 days there. We are just here! Besides, E isn't quite as portable as she use to be, and she only sleeps well in her own bed. I'm thankful that we can just stay here and relax for the next 4 days! Other than tomorrow, naps will be on schedule. Bedtime should be regular. It will actually be a relaxing holiday! Yeah!!! Moving back home has been a wonderful blessing on so many levels.

I'm thankful that I'm staying home with E. It took me awhile to get into the new routine of life at home, but I'm enjoying it more all the time. E is so much fun to watch grow and develop. She's the most wonderful blessing. I'm also thankful that Jut stays home with her 1 day/week, so that I can remember how much I love teaching. I needed this break away from the classroom to remind myself why I love what I do. I was contemplating a new profession, but I know that my desire is to be in the classroom. My year off this year has really brought that into focus for me. I'm thankful for this opportunity to be home, and yet look forward to the day that God provides me a new classroom, whenever that may happen.

These brief few things don't even begin to cover all that I have to be thankful for, but it is a beginning. Lastly, I want to leave some pics of the things that E has been doing lately to make me smile and be thankful for my time with her.

My little reader

She really enjoys her juice!

Sitting in the clothes basket

Wearing the clothes basket...

Wearing her toy container...

Our blessing are too numerous to count!!!!

Mama's Little Helper

E is getting to be more and more of a little helper these days. She loves to 'help' me do dishes. Now, I have found that she needs to stand on the dirty dishes side of me so that she doesn't keep throwing the clean ones back into the water. So, she stands on the 'dirty dishes' side and keeps my water full of dishes to wash. It keeps her quite entertained until she runs out of dishes to throw into the water...and so far, she hasn't broken anything yet. So, that's a good thing, too.

E also decided that she liked to rake leaves, or rather play in the piles of leaves, after a few times doing it. We raked our backyard at least 4 or 5 times. We loaded the leaves up into garbage bags to haul them to the curb. Well, E loved to help fill the bags! She started by putting one leaf at a time into the bag. A pile kept her busy for a LONG time!! By the time we were finished, she was scooping them up using 2 hands to help the process go a bit quicker.

She will also be my little 'tree-hugger' one day. She always pick up trash or litter on the ground. People that don't know her well always hurry to warm me that she's picked something up because they are afraid that she's going to put it in her mouth. But, I know better. She picks it up, peers closely at it to figure out what it is and them she hands it to me to dispose of. It doesn't matter if we are playing outside or are in the church...if there is something on the ground/floor that shouldn't be, she'll take care of it! (By giving it to me to take care of, of course!)

New Diapers...

Now, I know that most people don't get excited about new diapers, but I do. I love my cloth diapers!! We haven't been using them much since we moved because of a variety of issues, but we are back to it. CottonBabies replaced my set that were worn out with their 1-year warranty and I bought some new ones to replace the ones that just aren't any good anymore. So, we are back to cloth diapering full-time. Yipee!! I hate disposables!

One of my orders was from a work-at-home mom. She made us what we call "Victoria's Secret" diaper. It is a leopard print with hot pink crushed velvet on the inside. It is so cute! It makes E into a crazy girl! She loves it too.

My next project was creating fleece soakers (think modern version of 'rubber pants') to go over her fitted diapers that I ordered. They are so expensive to buy, but super cheap to make. So, I found a pattern on-line, went to Jo*Anne's to buy some fleece and headed to Mom's to sew it. Now, what I found out was that I'm not going to make a living selling these on E*bay...I can't sew a straight line to save my life, but the cover is pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I don't think that it will fit over her enormous diaper for night. I will have to tweak the pattern a bit and try again, but it will fit over a prefold. I had forgotten how much fun it was to sew...I may have resurrected an old hobby...We shall see.