Mirabel - 7 months

Oh, this girl. The solid foods have taken well to her. She loves them and they love her. Check out this physique...

My sweet, Mirabel. You are such a happy girl. Mommy and Daddy finally did some sleep training with you and you've done so well! You are so happy in the morning, jibber-jabbing in your crib. I could listen to your sweet voice for hours. You and your sister crack each other up! I'm so thankful God had blessed both of you with each other. You are getting so big! You love to play peek-a-boo. You love your bath. You are starting to scoot backwards which really frustrates you. You are so loved by so many around you. I'm so glad you joined our family. Kisses to you, my sweet girl.

Our Time in Atlanta

We took our first plane ride as a family of four to Atlanta a couple weeks ago. The flights were easy, the girls were fantastic and we had an amazing time with the family. We got to meet our newest niece, Miss Charlotte Diana, and with Grandma and Papa under the same roof as their five grandkids, we had quite the houseful of fun! London is quite the young man now. Maeve and Eloise are at a fun age to play together. Each trip down south keeps getting more and more fun (as more babies join the families).

Eloise meeting Miss Charlotte for the first time. 

Oh, Miss Charlotte!

Pretty baby. I miss you so. 

Kisses for the baby. 

We went to a live puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. It was so fun! Then we got to make our own to take home. This is Stan the Snowman. 

Eloise LOVES her new nightgown from her Aunt Tami. 

And matching pjs for their friends!

Aunt Tami reading bedtime stories to the girls.

London loves the babies.

Daddy and his girl.

Charlotte's baptism.

Here we are at Snow Mountain. They have family sized tubes to slide down and the big girls were just tall enough to ride along. I thought Eloise would be scared, but Daddy took her down 3 times! She'll tell you she screamed on the way down, but she really had a blast.

We said it all week, that we needed a picture of all 5 grandkids. It didn't happen, but here's one of our attempts. 

Grandma and her grandgirls.

Terminated: Challenge 1 of 7: Food

Good riddance food challenge. We didn't quite make it to 30 days but, It. Was. Time. Ugh.

Before I complain too much about eating the Same. Damn. Thing. Day. After. Day, I will say I've learned a lot this past month.

After just the first day of the challenge, I realized how much mindless eating I do. Being around the house, busy with the girls and keeping the house picked up, I just eat little bits of things here and there. Eloise wants some Goldfish, I'll pop a few in my mouth. She didn't finish all of her quesadilla for lunch? I'll just finish it so I don't have to throw it out. Don't even get me started on the candy dishes at work. And the never-ending baked goods brought in to share. I hope to be able to continue to have some self control when it comes to these extra calories and only choose to eat food that I have time to really enjoy.

Another thing I learned is how little food a person really needs each day. Though our menu options were slim and we tired of them quickly, we were able to survive on relatively few calories each day.

I had so much extra time it seemed! This was very surprising to me. Because I wasn't digging in the kitchen throughout the morning, looking for something to snack on, I wasn't cleaning up after those snacks, I could devote more quality time with the girls. And one of the biggest realizations I had was the time I spend in the evening, scrolling Facebook or watching shows, I mainly was staying up to do this so I could eat something along with it! Seriously, during this past month, whenever we were done with dinner and we couldn't just pop some popcorn or serve a bowl of ice cream, I would just brush my teeth. Once that was done, I would think, "well, I might as well just go to bed." Brilliant! Not only am I saving calories, I'm getting more sleep! That was a biggie for me.

I lost about 12 pounds during this challenge. Stoked about that (but also realistically know that won't all stay off after stopping the challenge). But I really do feel great. Food is just too much a part of my life, a part I really do enjoy that I can't stick to something like that forever. Healthier decisions will definitely be made, but I'm not willing to forfeit a bowl of ice cream and a whole milk latte every once in a while.

My husband has been such a trooper through all of this. He's had one of the busiest and most stressful months at work that he's ever had. Not being able to relax with beer, or even a Coke for that matter, has been really hard for him. Sorry for torturing you, babe.

I love food. I'm determined to make healthy decisions more often and to choose quality over quantity of food. Taking time to re-think if I really want or need something, or if I'm just choosing to eat it because it's available to me. Oh, and coffee. I reeeeeaaaallllyyy love coffee. I don't know that I will EVER give it up again. I did learn that I'm not addicted to it, I just really, really enjoy it. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I cannot WAIT to have a cup (or two or seven) tomorrow.

Stay tuned. Challenge 2 of 7 will be starting in a couple weeks. Next up, clothing. I expect it to be cake compared to the first challenge. Mmmmmmm, cake...  

1 of 7: Food

And so starts another new year. I've never been one to make (or keep) resolutions, but I do always love the new year, as it's always felt to me like a clean slate. I'm one who likes to organize/purge throughout the year, but the turn of the new year always gives me even more motivation to do so.

Enter: the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny in Excess, by Jen Hatmaker.  I got this book for Christmas last year, but I knew a little too much about it before even starting it and I have been reluctant to read it knowing what a challenge it was calling me to. 2014 is the year, folks. A month or so ago, something (ahem...God) was tugging at me to make some changes. It started with the sheer fact of admitting to myself that our budget was flexed as tight as it could be.

Justin and I are proud of the work we've done with our finances over the past 5 years (I have a spreadsheet of our budget for every month of the past five years. Seriously, we love this stuff) but now with two kiddos, money is tight. I felt like I needed an overhaul in re-learning "needs verses wants". I'd become lazy, thinking I needed to go straight to Amazon.com to order that thing that would make our lives easier as new parents of now two kiddos.

So, I'm ready for this marathon of months that should take us through almost the end of the year. We'll challenge ourselves each month with a new area of our life that the book leads us through, taking a week or two off in between challenges. I'm so thankful that Justin has agreed to do this with me. It will be so hard, but I just know, at the end of it, God will have shown me so much and I'm so anxious to learn and be renewed with the things He's been telling me all along.

Tomorrow we start with our first challenge: Food. We've agreed on 9 foods. (The book uses 7; we decided to modify it slightly.) So 9 foods will be all that we eat for four weeks. I will say coffee is NOT one of those foods and I'm not ashamed to admit it will be what will be the hardest for me not to have.

I'm hoping and praying for a few things this month. The most important thing I want to remember/know/feel with all my being, is that God is enough. The author of the book emphasizes the mantra, "Less of me, more of You". I want to feel that and live that, for myself, for my husband, for my daughters, for others.

I want to revert to prayer much, much more throughout my day. I have a feeling without caffeine running through my veins, I'll be relying on prayer for much of my day.

I want to be healthy. I want to eat to sustain and enhance my life. Not just blindly eat what is in front of me for no reason but to eat or overindulge.

I want to simplify. Part of me is really looking forward to the fact that, with this commitment, I only have a few choices of what I will eat. I won't have to decide between grabbing another granola bar because it's so easy and right there, when it's an apple instead on my list.

I want to be grateful. I'm sure there will be many times over the next four weeks that I will be angry (or hangry for that matter; hungry and angry). But I hope that I can think about the millions of starving people who would be so thankful to have 9 options of foods to eat. Perspective.

As I eat (and relish in) this last bite of Nutella toast, I'm praying for a quite and restful night that I might have a strong start to the challenge that starts right away in the morning. I put the coffee machine in the cupboard so I won't even see the blasted thing...

Look-a-like

So, I realize this is exposing my baby bum to the whole blogosphere, but take a look at this resemblance. Not only does Mirabel look a lot like me at this age, I couldn't believe the manner in which these photos were taken. I still hadn't taken Mirabel's 6 month photos and the day was almost done. I got her out of the bath and thought, You look pretty darn cute right there, I'll go get the camera and just do it now!

After blogging her 6 months photos on here last week, I was curious to get out some of my baby pictures when I was 6 months old. And I found this one. I can only assume that my mom took this photo of me and now almost 30 years later, I saw my daughter in the same pose and thought to snap a shot of her as well. Pretty neat.

Mirabel, 6 months.

Me, 6 months.