Cloth Diapering

When we found out I was pregnant, I knew right away that I wanted to use cloth diapers, but Robert took a bit of convincing.  The idea of dealing with poop and pee grossed him out - spraying off the poop, washing them, reusing them.  But then I reminded him that whether you use cloth or disposable diapers you'll be dealing with poop or pee so we might as well save some money in the process.  I know that cloth isn't for everyone.  Maybe you both have full-time jobs outside of the home and thinking about having to do any more laundry than you have to do just isn't tolerable.  Maybe you don't even own a washing machine and you couldn't dream of sitting at the laundromat for three hours while the diaps (diapers) spin away.  Maybe you're just uninterested in cloth and feel like using sposies (disposables) will fit into your budget with ease.  All of those reasons are a-okay, but if you're even the slightest bit interested in using cloth I'm here to say that you can absolutely do it and live to tell about it!

I would imagine that most people's reason for wanting to use cloth is either to save money, take care of the environment better, or to take care of your baby's health in a natural way.  I'd say our top reason was to save money, and the other two reasons are added benefits.  The current stat is that a lifetime of diapers (birth to potty training) costs an average of $2,160, and our cloth diapers cost $300 for Sarah's lifetime and will be free for future children.  Now, I realize that this stat is slightly skewed.  The $300 doesn't account for water, electricity, and detergent used to care for the diapers, but that's really hard to figure out.  I'd say that using disposable diapers also accrues the expenses of diaper genies, genie refills bags, and disposable wipes, so let's just say it evens out, okay?  I'm not going to try to convince you to use cloth diapers.  There are enough people sharing their opinions on it.  I'll let you read this article if you want, though.

Many moons ago, cloth diapers were majorly inconvenient, and that's exactly why disposable diapers were invented, but you don't have to deal with diaper services, safety pins, and leaky diapers nowadays.  When I was pregnant I did lots of research on cloth diapers.  Actually, Robert is the master researcher of the household.  He can become somewhat obsessive until he learns everything there is to know about a topic.  At times it can be a tad annoying, but when I need to become an expert on something I can definitely count on Robert to help me consume the information.  He found this awesome website called BabyGearLab.  It was our go-to for finding the best baby carrier, stroller, car seat, and diapers.  It does a good job of helping you get the best bang for you buck depending on your budget.  From Robert's research, we settled on Flip diapers.  Flip received BabyGearLab's best rating for best value, and it was just one point shy (88 out of 100 vs. 89 out of 100) of winning the editor's pick, so it was second place overall but also less than half the lifetime price at $300 vs. $720.  

You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Flip diapers here, but I'll just give you the highlights.  You can pick different types of inserts.  We went with the organic cotton inserts.  You have to fold them to make them fit.  I have no idea what all the official terms are.  Honestly, I think that's part of what overwhelms people and turns them off from cloth diaps - all in one, all in two, one size fits all, snaps vs. hook and loop, inserts, pre-folds, liners, covers, hybrids, pockets, stripping, stash, wet bags.  The only words I use are cloth diapers, wet bag, inserts, and shells.  You don't need to know the official terms!  You just need to know what you actually do to take care of your baby's diaper needs.  With the Flip diapers I like that you can re-use the shell and just put in new inserts when they get wet.  You only need to get a new shell if it gets super wet or gets poop on it, so you don't need nearly as many shells as you have inserts which saves quite a bit of money.  We have 8 shells and 21 inserts. 

Okay, now for random thoughts and what's worked for us personally:

• Hands down biggest tip - Don't even try to mess with cloth until you feel ready for it.  For us, it was when Sarah was two months old.  When she was a week old and her daily diaper changes were in the double digits, I couldn't dream of ever cooking dinner again, I couldn't even go to the bathroom by myself, and Sarah needed to be fed every 2.5 hours I seriously thought I was insane for ever thinking I could do cloth diapers, but by the time Sarah was two months old I was cooking again, she had about 8 diaper changes a day, and she could go 3 hours before needing to be fed.  I started to think I could handle cloth.  So go with disposables until you feel ready for it.  We buy disposable diapers from diapers.com and have had great luck getting huge discounts and free shipping on diapers and other baby items.

First time sporting a cloth diaper

• Don't be ashamed to use disposables when you think it's the right thing to do.  We use disposables at night.  I just don't like the idea of her legs being spread apart that far all night.  Nighttime diapers practically make her do the splits (slight exaggeration).  We send disposables with her when she goes to the church nursery.  We used disposables for two weeks when we moved and didn't have our washing machine set up yet.  No shame in that game!
• Don't use ordinary diaper rash cream with cloth diapers.  You'll have to do some research to find one that's safe.  I just know you shouldn't use regular creams like Desitin with cloth due to it effecting the absorbency.  However, I can say that Sarah's only ever had diaper rash once in her life.  It was before we even started cloth, and it went away in less than a week.  That's one of the perks of cloth - less rashes!

Caring for the diapers

Here's our routine:

• Change Sarah's diaper.  If it's just wet we only replace the insert.  Wet and dirty diapers both go in the wet bag.  You can get official cloth diaper pails, but we just use a kitchen size trash can with the wet bag in it.  It's important that you not use a lid so air can circulate.  This prevents mold and mildew.
• I wash the diapers every three days.  Our process for washing:
• First time through - Quick wash, warm/cold water, half the amount of detergent that you'd usually use for that size of load.  For us, it's a medium load and halfway up to the first line of the detergent.  Powder detergent is KEY.  Don't use liquid!  It's up to you whether you want to use natural detergent (good for the environment and baby, not as good at getting out stink and stains) or heavy duty, traditional detergent like Gain (unnatural but gets out the ammonia, etc.).  We use Gain original powder.  Top loading washing machines are your friend, and the center agitator works hard for you!
• Second time - Heavy duty/longest wash, hot/cold water, full amount of detergent (all the way to the first line for us)
• Third time - Rinse and spin, cold/cold water, no detergent
• Line dry inserts and shells - With some you can dry them in the dryer.  You aren't supposed to for our shells, and for us I just like the fact that it saves us even more money not using the dryer.  I've been hanging them inside on a drying rack while it's been cold, but in the summer I'll hang them outside, and the sun works as a natural bleach and disinfectant.  
• If you want to get overwhelmed, just go to this website to read everything on washing cloth diapers. ;)
• We use the bumGenius Diaper Sprayer and it is the BEST!!!  I've heard that if you breastfeed you don't have to spray off the poop and you can just put it directly into the washing machine.  We use formula so that isn't an option for us, but I'm also not sure that I'd enjoy having poop sitting in my house for three days anyway.  This sprayer attached easily to our toilet without using any tools to assemble and attach it.  It sprays off the poop incredibly easily and gets the job done very well.
• We also got the Spray Pal, and I would not recommend it.  It was cumbersome and difficult to use and really unnecessary because we never get sprayed by the diaper spray anyway...except for that one time Robert sprayed himself in the eye and it ricocheted onto the ceiling.  
• You do NOT need to strip your diapers.  As long as you care for them appropriately they will not lose absorbency or have a horrific odor.  That's all I'm going to say on that topic.

Unfortunately, Flip diapers aren't sold in stores, so we had to buy ours on Amazon and Cotton Babies.  We got our inserts from Amazon as well as one super cute Einstein shell.  We got the rest of our shells from Cotton Babies on an awesome sale.  Every so often Cotton Babies has "Seconds" which are drastically reduced priced diapers that are slightly imperfect for reasons such as mis-printed fabric, less than perfect stitching, etc.  A friend told me about this the very day I was about to order diapers, and it seriously slashed our cost for shells in half.  I also bought one three-pack of light blue diapers which saved us money buying in bulk.

Okay, I fully realize that this post was probably super unappealing to those of you who are usually into this blog for the cute Sarah updates, but I just felt like if I could have gone onto one post and seen everything I needed to know about cloth diapers it would have been very helpful to me, so here's hoping that this post makes at least one person feel confident in cloth diapering.  Let me know if you have any questions!

Sarah's First Trip to the Zoo

This has been such a fun weekend!  I'd mentioned that last week was insane with Robert working his normal schedule plus about 20 hours extra last Friday and Saturday, so this week he took a three day weekend!!!  It was awesome, and we loved it, but it also made me sad that we can't be together like this all the time.  If only we could both be stay-at-home parents. :)  

Thursday morning Becky and I went walking with Sarah and her dog, Lucy, just like we always do on Thursday mornings.  It's been majorly beautiful outside the last few days, so we needed to take advantage of it.  Robert stayed home and did absolutely nothing which is exactly what he wanted to do.  Right before we got home Robert had to leave to go visit a student who was having shoulder surgery, so Sarah and I hung out for a bit.  I'll be honest and say we may or may not have sat in the parked car while she slept in the car seat for 45 minutes.  Don't pretend like you've never done it!  When she woke up I decided to lay out a blanket in the front yard so we could sit together and listen to the birds and leaves.  Sarah thought it was super mesmerizing to watch the dead leaves blow across the street since it was so windy.  She rolled from her tummy to back twice while we were outside.  The wind must have helped her!  When Robert got home we did the typical lunch, play, nap, and watched Friends.  I've seen episodes here and there, but this is our first time to actually walk it through.  Phoebe just had triplets, and Rachel and Chandler are together for the first time!  When Sarah woke up we decided to go for another stroller ride and hopped in the car to walk on The Trail of Tears.  We'd seen signs for it throughout town, so we got on it at a trail head near our house.  I think we were both imagining it would be super cool and a fun adventure, but it ended up being about a half mile of a dirt trail that ended in somebody's back yard.  What did we do wrong?  So we just turned around and drove around town for a bit.  Robert got a glimpse into just how slowly the day goes with Sarah. :)  She's a fun baby, but I think he's understanding more and more why I'm so pumped when he comes home at 5:15!  I sent Robert out to buy some M&M's so we could make monster cookie bars, and while he was out he rented us to DVDs from Family Video.  I can't even remember the last time I was inside a movie rental store!  Apparently they're having to be more competitive with prices due to Redbox and Netflix because he rented two movies for a total of about $2.50.  I remember renting one movie for $5 back in the day.  We watched Promised Land, and I can't really say that I'd recommend it.  It was pretty slow and didn't grab my attention, but those monster cookie bars?  They were delish.  You can get the recipe here.

We took Sarah for another stroller ride yesterday.  Seriously, best weather ever.  Sarah tried out her swing set for the first time.  The sellers accidentally left their play set here and didn't bother to come back for it, so it's ours now!  Sarah didn't laugh with glee, but she also didn't cry, so we're calling this swing experience a success.  After dinner we were bored, and my wild husband suggested going to play putt putt.  At only $2.50/person for 18 holes it's a pretty sweet deal.  Robert still beat me even with wearing Sarah for the whole time.  He even won a free round of putt putt on the final hole!  I have no excuse.  We finished up the night with walking around Lowe's and pricing things on our house wish list and got bummed out realizing that this stuff is happening no time soon unless we strike gold.  

Today couldn't have been better!  Any day where Sarah sleeps until 8:15 is a good day!  Robert woke up early to go to the men's breakfast at church, and I got Sarah ready to meet up with my parents to celebrate our friend Carl's birthday.  Robert was going to meet us at Scramblers and just have coffee.  I walked out the garage and realized that Robert had taken my car.  Wah wah wah.  Told myself that I STILL need to learn how to drive Robert's stick shift and had to wait for Robert to finish up and come and get me so we could all ride together to Scramblers.  Breakfast was tasty, and it was good to see Carl.  After breakfast, my parents watched Sarah while Robert and I went to a high school drum line competition to see some of our students compete.  They sounded great and won first place!  I'd never been to anything like this before.  We're hoping to go to more of their performances later this year, and Sarah will definitely be coming with us and rocking her super cool noise-reducing earmuffs.  

After the competition, we met back up with Mom, Dad, and Sarah and hit up the zoo!  This was Sarah's first trip to the zoo, and it was awesome!  Dad had packed a picnic lunch for us to enjoy when we first got there.  Let me tell you, we weren't the only ones taking advantage of a 75 degree day in February!  Honestly, once we got in it didn't feel unbearably full.  She lasted for about half and hour and then fell asleep for 45 minutes just in time to wake up for the last 30 minutes.  Sarah really liked the monkeys and the peacocks.  We got an annual membership to the zoo and will definitely be going there a ton!

We went to Wicked Wok for dinner and got Culver's for dessert.  Sarah decided she'd had enough for the day and her gums were majorly hurting so she treated us to 15 minutes of screaming in the car followed by an hour long nap.  Yikes!  But seriously, she's really good at going with the flow and being up for whatever we have planned for her.  Sister is catching some major zzz's now.

Valentine's Day and President's Day

Valentine's and President's Day were two unique and fun days for us!  Our youth group has a huge fundraiser for Valentine's Day, and it was held on Saturday this year.  Robert put it on last year a mere two weeks after starting his job, so this year he was able to get in a lot more preparation.  I sold tickets before and after church for about the last month.  Tickets were $10/person and included dinner and entertainment.

Friday and Saturday were huge days for Robert!  I may or may not have gone slightly crazy on Friday when left alone with Sarah for 10 hours.  I can complain about 10 hours of being with a baby and minimal adult interaction.  Robert could complain about working at the church for 10 hours.  The plight of the stay at home mom, am I right?  When you think you're husband is coming home at 5:00 and it turns into 7:30, those two and a half hours are enough to do you in.  I'm glad this is not the norm at all.  Robert spent Friday going grocery shopping, doing meal prep, and decorating with volunteers.

Sarah and I went with Robert up to the church Saturday morning at 10:00 to practice a few songs and a dance with some of the youth.  Robert and Gabby practiced a version of 4 Chords together, and it turned out so well!  "4 Dudes" practiced Thinking Out Loud  - Robert's song to me.  Griffen played electric, Robert sang and played acoustic, Jacob played bass, and Braden played drums.  It sounded so good!  I joined the boys to form "A Rose Among Thorns" to sing Love Alone is Worth the Fight.  The boys and Gabby practice their dance to What is Love?  Sarah did a really good job watching us all practice.  Our groups had actually all practiced the Saturday before this for a few hours.  Sarah is such a trooper!  Anyway, after this practice we went home for a bit to eat and relax, and then Robert headed back up to the church.  Sarah and a joined everyone after her nap.

The banquet was awesome!  The students did such a great job serving everyone, and there was a fantastic turnout.  Dinner was tasty, or so I'm told.  It was salad, bread, chicken risotto, and a dessert trio of berries, brownies, and cheesecake bites.  The performances were very entertaining!  We had all the ones I already mentioned, plus vocal solos, a saxophone solo, and Rubiks Cube race, and ninja warrior flip show of sorts.  It was great!  Last year had only been musical performances.  Robert and I added in another new element of a silent auction this year.  It was a total hit!  Some of the items were themed baskets donated by Sunday School classes such as a kitchen basket, spa, and movie night.  Other items were donated by local businesses like coupons for bowling, coupons for ice cream, and hair care products.  We ended up raising $4,000 through the event!

With Valentine's Day falling on a Sunday, Robert's busiest day of the week, it didn't really lend itself to a romantic night out - that and having a 6 month old.  After church Robert ran to the store to buy steak for lunch, not realizing that I was also at the store to buy him a card and chocolate.  We ran into each other at the store.  Hooray for last minute shopping!  We enjoyed a nice lunch together while Sarah napped.  We decided to have the youth over for the evening instead of meeting at church like we usually do.  We watched The Incredibles and had snacks.  There were a lot of people here!  We're so thankful that we can do things like this now that we own a house.  Sarah did great and sat with the kids some and also play and napped in her room some with Emily and me.  Emily is the older sister of one of students, and I was so glad she could join us!  Most of the students stayed from 5:00-7:00, but we had a few stay until 11:30, and it was so fun to talk, watch tv, and play the Wii.  Another time we were so thankful that Sarah is an awesome sleeper and could miraculously sleep through all the laughter and shouting.  21 year old me wouldn't have picked this scenario for Valentine's Day, but 25 year old me thought it was such a great way to spend our day!

Wearing her fancy robe in honor of Valentine's Day

For President's Day on Monday my mom came over since she had the day off from school!  So thankful to live near them again!  Mom helped me give Sarah a bath, held Sarah while she napped and I folded 200 pounds of laundry (roughly), I went to the gym while Sarah and Mom hung out, enjoyed lunch together, talked while Sarah napped, played, and even went for a stroller ride.  I'm still working on convincing Mom to move in.  Hint hint, nudge nudge.

Homemade Baby Food

It's no secret that Robert and I are on a tight budget due to living off of his single income.  I'm always looking for ways to save us money whether it be by shopping at Aldi, line drying Sarah's diapers (or even just using cloth for that matter), and getting creative with leftovers.  So when Sarah turned six months old and it was time to introduce fruits and vegetables I knew that I would primarily be feeding her homemade baby food to save money and to provide her with wholesome, single ingredient foods.  I know one of the biggest negatives that comes to mind when thinking about homemade baby food is the time commitment.  However, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be that way!

So far I've made green beans, avocado, acorn squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and apple sauce, and they've all been very successful.  A few things I've learned through personal experimentation and through online and book research include:

• Use fresh when you can (duh), but when something isn't in season you should shoot for frozen.  You really don't want to make baby food from canned fruits or vegetables.  Fresh and frozen will be the most nutrient-rich options compared to canned.  It will also be fresher and won't have any seasonings or sugars added to it.  I've used all fresh so far except for green beans as they obviously aren't in season in February.
• The best cooking method is baking/roasting, second place is steaming, and you really want to avoid boiling or microwaving.  Boiling and microwaving will remove a lot of nutrients.  Also, if you think about it, as an adult don't most foods that you enjoy taste better baked or steamed than boiled or microwaved?  I know that a baked sweet potato tastes better than a microwaved sweet potato and that steamed broccoli tastes better than boiled broccoli.  Your baby feels the same way!
• There seems to be conflicting thought on whether you should re-use your steaming/boiling water or get fresh water to thin out the baby food.  I can see benefits to both perspectives.  By re-using your water maybe you're re-adding some vitamins that escaped, but by using fresh water maybe you're avoiding re-adding any dirty, germy water back into your food.  I'm not convinced that one option is superior over the other.  There are some foods that don't even need water added, such as apples.  There are other foods like sweet potatoes that are rather dry and just need some liquid in order to puree.  Generally, it's best to add as little liquid as possible during the pureeing process, especially if you'll be freezing the puree.  The consistency will change during the freezing and thawing process, and you'd rather have to add more liquid right before serving than regretting that you added too much before freezing and now it's watery.  Just plan to add liquid as needed when you're ready to serve the food.
• Pureeing the food - I've used a fork for ripe avocado, and I'd imagine you could do the same with bananas.  When I need to puree foods, I use our Ninja, and it works very well.  I didn't use the large container but opted to use the single-serve, smoothie cup instead.  From personal experience, blenders always seem to work better if they're about 75% full.  You obviously don't want it so full that it overflows when you put on the lid, but they also just don't work when they're fairly empty.
• Storing and serving - If you're making a small batch you can just store it in the refrigerator for a few days.  You want to make sure that you store the food in single portion sizes because you don't want to re-use any leftovers due to contamination from saliva.  If you aren't serving the food fairly quickly, then you can freeze the food.  That's what I've been doing.  I spoon the food into ice cube trays, freeze it overnight, pop them out the next day, and store them in a labeled freezer bag.  They can stay in the freezer for months.  I just get out a cube a few hours before serving so it can defrost.

• Cold pressed oil - Babies need lots of good, healthy fats to develop properly.  Babies under two should receive 40-50% of their daily calories through healthy fats.  Babies get lots of healthy fats through breast milk and formula, but it's helpful to add in fats to baby food.  You don't need much - only about 1 tablespoon a day.  Good fats also make foods taste better.  Think about it - having a little fat on your meat adds so much flavor and prevents it from getting dry.  Baby food acts the same way.  
• Fats to avoid
• Partially hydrogenated oils
• Vegetables oils
• Margarine
• Good fats:
• Cold pressed, organic coconut oil
• Cold pressed, unrefined extra virgin oil
• Organic, grass fed butter
• Avocado
• Wait a few days in between trying new foods.  I know the chance of your baby being allergic to sweet potato is very low.  Have you ever met anyone allergic to sweet potato?  Neither have I.  Regardless of the allergy food, your baby's body needs time to learn how to digest these new flavors and consistencies, so it helps to avoid overwhelming her system by introducing foods over the course of a few days.
• Sarah seems to naturally like orange and yellow vegetables like carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes because they're sweet.  Green foods that aren't as sweet such as avocado and green beans didn't appeal to her as much on their own.  Actually, she hated them.  When she ate green beans she made herself gag and threw up.  It was disgusting.  So I read that you can ease your baby into a new food by mixing it with a familiar taste such as breast milk, formula, or cereal, and it totally worked for Sarah!



Hating avocado without cereal





Reaching for more avocado when mixed with cereal

After Sarah finishes the food I've already made her I plan to make butternut squash, peas, bananas, apricot, pears, and pumpkins.  I've read that nectarine, mango, papaya, peach, and plum are also good first foods, but those just aren't easily accessible and tasty in southwest Missouri in February.  My favorite website for resources has been Wholesome Baby Food, and my favorite book as been one that my parents got me when Sarah was born, and it's called The Top 100 Healthy Recipes for Babies & Toddlers. So how about you?  Have you had success making baby food?  Any good and funny baby food catastrophes?

Sarah At Six Months

Stats
Weight: 18lb 0.2oz (80%) - She has awesomely chunky thighs!
Height: 26.25" (70%) - I'm not so sure that this is accurate considering the fact that she measured 26.3" two months ago and has gone up a clothing size since then.
Head circumference: 16.5" (43%) - Tiny like Daddy!

Sleeping
Sarah's night is typically 8:15pm-7:30am.  Occasionally she'll sleep as late as 8:30, but that's very rare.  She still takes three naps during the day - morning, afternoon, and evening.  The morning is the shortest, evening is the mid-length, and afternoon is the longest.  Morning nap is usually only about 30 minutes and still happens in my arms.  The afternoon nap is happening in the crib more and more (!!!) and lasts at least an hour on short days, 2 hours on normal days, and 4 hours once in a blue moon.  Her evening nap happens in our arms or in the crib depending on how long we think it is going to last.  She is no longer swaddled at night and just sleeps in a sleep sack or her Zipadee-Zip.  The afternoon nap happens in the Zipadee-Zip or swaddled with her arms in depending on how rowdy she is.  She hasn't been able to handle a sleep sack in the afternoon, but we just got new blinds in her room and they keep the sun out better, so I'm hopeful that afternoon naps might be a bit better now.

Eating
Sarah eats an 8oz bottle at 8:00, 12:00, 4:00, and 8:00.  She eats rice cereal before the bottle at 8:00, 12:00, and 4:00.  We tried oatmeal, and she threw up both days that we gave it to her.  I'm unsure whether or not it was an allergic/digestive reaction or if it was a freak coincidence, but we've decided to just stick with the rice for now since she likes it and it agrees with her well.  We're excited to start her on baby food!  She's started showing a big interest in our food when we eat.  I'm hoping to make some baby food for her and just use store-bought while we're out and about.

Personality
Sarah thinks Robert is the most fun and most hilarious person in the universe.  It's really fun to see them interact.  I'm also a bit jealous that she gets so thrilled when he comes home from work.  She gets pumped to see people she recognizes like grandparents and youth kids.

Health and Physical Ability
Sarah can roll onto her side from her back and from her stomach.  She seems to get so close to officially rolling over and then stops.  Her second tooth appeared on January 10.  We were at baby Asa's first birthday party, and his mom, Tarah, said, "Aww, I see Sarah's teeth!"  Me, "No, she just has one tooth.  Wait!  What?"  Sure enough, two teeth.  I swear that second one popped through on our drive to the party.  She drools a lot less now that those teeth are in.  She is very good at tracking and has really started to notice Mittens walking around this month.  She looks up when you say her name.  She is really into doing crunches.  She can stand with support.  She can officially sit, too!  She can last about 30 seconds before toppling over.  There was a big growth spurt in the physical ability department this month.  No cold/flu yet this winter, and she's still never had a fever, even with teething or vaccinations.  Knock on wood.

Superficial
Her hair is coming in more and more, and it's definitely blonde and straight.  Her eyelashes and blue eyes are still beyond stunning.  I think it's safe to say she officially has blue eyes.  Our pediatrician said you can usually trust eye color at 6 months.  She has the cutest facial features - chubby cheeks, rosy cheeks, kissable lips, perfect skin.  She's gorgeous.

Highlights of the month
January 6 - First big, intentional laugh
January 10 - Asa's birthday party (Sarah's first birthday party to attend for a friend).  Sarah's second tooth.

January 15 - First time on a swing (At Memaw and Pepaw's house)

January 20 - First snow

January 29 - Mark and Serina came for a quick overnight visit on their way to vacation.
January 30 - First collegiate sporting event: hockey.  (My first hockey game as well. HA!)

February 3 - Rolled from back to tummy twice!
February 4 - Introduction of the high chair

Dear Sarah,
I hope you never lose your ability to see the beauty in simple things like leaves blowing in the wind, listening to the guitar, petting a soft cat, watching a bird out the window, or laughing and being silly.  God made these things for you to enjoy because he loves you.  He could have a created a very boring but functional world, but he decided to be creative and made sunsets and sunrises, fluffy cat fur, chirping birds, and cool breezes on hot days.  God loves the birds so much that he makes sure that they are fed, but he loves YOU so much that he gave his only Son to die on the cross to forgive all people of their sins.  If you believe this and believe that you need a Savior, then God will rescue you.  How glorious is that?  Sarah, I pray every day for your salvation and that you will seek to follow God and His ways all the days of your life.  I want nothing more and nothing less for you.  I will love you all the days of my life.