one month old?!?

I can hardly believe my baby boy is already a month old (as of yesterday)! This has been the most difficult and greatest month of my entire life, all wrapped up in one. There are so many precious things Elijah does every day that just can't seem to be captured on camera, but here are a few pictures from the last couple of days!

Asleep in his sling

Always in awe of Jazz

Happy baby!

Tummy time!

Kathryn came to visit!

And, that's all, folks...I'm out!

lost and found

I realized about a week ago that I had possibly lost my keys, but I guess I haven't thought about them too much because I have hardly driven at all. When I did leave the house, I've been with Justin and haven't needed my keys. I was pretty sure the keys would show up eventually, so I just didn't worry. I gotta tell ya - God is just so gracious. Again - even in the little things, like keys.


I got a letter from Food Lion on Friday, which seemed kind of random. The letter said that another customer had found my FL MVP card and wanted to get in touch with me. I knew right away that the letter was talking about my keys, since I have my MVP card on my key ring. They did not give this customer my info, but included his info in the letter so that I could get in touch with him. I was amazed. First of all, that this person at FL took the time to write me a letter in order to find me. Also, that this customer had gone out of his way to make sure and get my keys to me.

Justin called the guy for me and he ended up living right around the corner from us. I guess I had left the keys on the car and drove away. (I was driving Justin's car, so I had his spare key and didn't "need" my keys in the car). How great that someone would take the time to find me! We tried to give them a gift card for a restaurant that we had around, but they refused to take it.

Just wanted to share this with you, to encourage you about the good deeds still left in people as well as encourage you to shop at Food Lion! Even though I don't have much of a choice in grocery stores here, I've always liked FL, and now I'm thankful for their concern for their customers. Again, God is so gracious and good! A reminder for me to continually (intentionally) turn over the little things to Him because He does care about them.

mommy's "big break"

Alright. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna post. It may mean I miss my window of opportunity for a shower right now during Elijah's nap, but so be it!

I have to share with you about my "big break." That is...my big break from Elijah last night as I left him in the church nursery. Ok - it was only for an hour, but I must have looked at my watch a million times during that hour as I sat in church. The service was great last night and it felt so wonderful to be back at church and out of the house, but I still worried about my little man. Mostly because he was basically screaming when I left him. (I felt good and bad about that!)

I was praying about whether or not last night was the time to get out and go to church for the first time as I was feeding Elijah yesterday afternoon. As I was praying, I suddenly realized that orange, runny poop was running onto my jeans, my boppy, and my awesome (antique white) rocking chair. As I changed Elijah, I called my mom, then Justin on advice on how to get this awfully orange stain out of my chair cushion that I thought was machine washable. Turns out the directions say not to wash it. Long story short, I got the stain (mostly) out, but I was sure this was God's answer to going to church: "OK, Erin, you're right, you're just not ready to leave Elijah in someone else's hands while you spend time in worship." And I was ok sharing that with Justin - tonight just was not going to be the night.

But...after I had a chance to calm down from the ridiculous stains, throw my jeans in the wash so I could wear them (because not much else fits right now), get dinner started, put Elijah to sleep (after I changed another completely full orange, runny diaper)...God was confirming that it was the night to head out to church again. And it was such a blessing.

I dropped Elijah off at the nursery where it was just him and one other little girl. I changed another yucky diaper (trying to be considerate), which ended in me leaving him screaming with the nursery worker. Even though it was weird not having him with me, I returned to the nursery to find him fed, SO content, and eating up the attention of all the ladies who had inevitably shown up to get a peek at him. I was so proud! He did really well for his first nursery experience. The rest of his umbilical cord fell off while he was there, which freaked out the ladies, but I was just glad to finally have it all gone!

Then, we headed to choir practice where I was praying for the same good experience. And it was! It was like Elijah knew exactly where he was - I guess because he'd spent 9 months sitting through Justin's (grueling) choir rehearsals. (Just kidding, babe!) He was wide awake at first, taking it all in. Then he slept for the rest of the time, which amazed me. Again, I was so proud!

I'm so thankful for how God calms our nerves and often works things out better than we had even expected. How amazing that God cares about the small areas of our lives, knowing exactly how we feel. I pray that I will continue to give my fears and feelings to the Lord as I am raising Elijah, because, honestly, he has evoked some major feelings since his arrival, and I've gotta keep my thoughts in check with Him!

Please share: What was your first experience in leaving your child in someone else's care??

snow...finally!

I have been teased so much by snow this year, it's not funny! Literally, it seemed that every time it snowed in the past couple of weeks, it would snow everywhere BUT Jonesville. Well, we finally got a beautiful snow! Too bad Elijah is too little to enjoy it, but that certainly didn't stop Justin and Jazz! Elijah and I got spoiled having Daddy at home Sunday night and all day Monday! We had such a relaxing day yesterday. That's right, my son is only 12 days old and we had a relaxing day. He is such a great baby!

Elijah and I checking out his first snow

Jazz checking out the snow with Justin

I finally took an outside picture of our house!