The Good, Full Life

I have written so many blog posts in my head that never made into the real thing. I feel like Charity's life has had so little recorded about it!!  A condensed version of her life would be that the first 5 weeks of her life was miserable for her and me. She was not a good sleeper and just cried and fussed her way through SO many naps unless she was being held. I don't know how many of her naps I laid in bed with her on my chest so we could BOTH sleep. She was a good eater, she didn't have unusual amounts of burps or gas. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes she slept great, others she didn't. And she wasn't spacing out her feeding times, either. I finally had a light-bulb moment when she'd had a few great days and then suddenly she was having a horrible time of sleeping again. I thought and thought and thought, going over each and every single detail of what I had eaten, where we had gone, what she had done over the last day and realized that I had eaten ice cream 24 hours before. I had been surviving on ice cream and yogurt for my "I'm starving, I don't have time to make food, there is no food ready to eat RIGHT now, I am so tired (caffeine isn't really an option)..." snacks and "get me through to bedtime" meals. I quite eating dairy and she turned into the happiest, smiliest baby just like I thought she would! Thankfully I don't have to read labels, but boy oh boy do I miss cheese and yogurt and ice cream! Hooray for Almond Ice Cream and other non-dairy frozen dessert things that I enjoy from time to time. She is just now to where I can have Parmesan Cheese on Spaghetti again. Yummy!! :) She sleeps through the night, from about 10/10:30pm to USUALLY about 6 or 6:30am. Now if I would go to bed at 10 or 10:30... ;)

 Daniel's work never had a slow season this spring. That seems typical of our baby years for some reason! He just came out of two 75-ish hr. work weeks so we are really looking forward to the 3-day weekend this week!

We make the most of his time at home when we're awake and can visit and hang out as a family.

Susannah and Sylvia adore Charity. :)  Susannah has developed and interest in the written word. She spends big chunks of time writing our names and from time to time other peoples' names. She is showing an interest in reading, too, so learning how to read may be in her future for this fall!

One day I decided I was going to make a set breakfast and lunch menu for a week, and we just go 'round and 'round with that. I eliminates 2 things for me to think about and figure out each day. :) I enjoy it and so do the girls. Ice-cube tray lunches are one of their favorites!  It changes a little each week depending on what fresh fruit and vegetables I have, but it's usually similar to below.

L-R: Organic Animal Crackers, Strawberries, Lunch-meat Roll (cut into wheels), Cheese, Avocado, Ranch Dressing, Bell Pepper, Croutons, Cucumber

I love being mama to this sweet girl!!!  It is strange, though, to look at her sometimes because she just has peach fuzz for hair. Both Susannah and Sylvia had at least 1" long, dark hair by this age. :) Charity looks a lot like Daniel when he was a baby.

Walking on the ceiling is fun when Daddy's home

 And sleeping on the ceiling, too... :)

In Daniel's "spare" time he has been busy building a large chicken house onto the back of our shed. We are very eager to have chickens again!!  He has made a lot of progress since I took this photo, and we hope that he will be able to have it chicken-ready very soon!!

 

I don't plan to leave you all hanging for another 2 1/2 months before I post again, but for now I must go see about dinner. Happy 4th!!!