8 Months Old

Stella's 8 months old today, or as Joel says, 2/3 of a year old. At 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months, it did seem like it had been that long. Now time does seem like it's moving quickly. I guess 8 months is typically the time when "the novelty of having a baby has worn off," meaning that most couples are very accustomed to having a baby, and it's like she's always been there. Now that Stella's 8 months, we can start giving her dairy (soft, pasteurized cheeses, cottage cheese, yogurt), finger foods (cut up bagels, pieces of banana, spiral pasta, teething crackers, cheerios), small amounts of protein (egg yolk, pureed meats and poultry, tofu, beans). Knowing Joel, I doubt we'll give her tofu, and in my opinion, there's no point to juice. She had talapia for the first time tonight. Joel gave her little flakes, and she really liked it and was taking it out of his hand. I still need to nail down the schedule for all of these new additions. She has been REALLY experimenting with her voice this past week. She covers more than 1 octave in her squeals and noises and gets pretty high. She still is stuck on ba, ba and ma, ma, with a little ga, ga thrown in. She's being stubborn with the da, da's. As you can see in the video below, she is pulling up and standing on anything she can access. She takes off 1 hand at a time a lot, and sometimes takes off both hands to fully grasp her toy and then falls. She is progressing quickly!

It's amazing how soft God can make your heart toward your baby. Almost EVERY time I pray, I start crying thinking of what a blessing Stella is, and because I am that much more cognisant of what a truly evil person I am. Only by the grace of God am I at all a good person who has made it a habit to be positive and optimistic. I'm thankful that God has made my family generational Christians, which in my lifetime started with my Great Grandma Lane. She is 99 years old and probably the most steadfast Christian I know. Joel, Stella, and I went to visit her yesterday. She slept most of the time, but was awake for maybe 10 minutes. She just stared at Stella the whole time and tried to say something a few times, but no sound came out. It was amazing to think there are 99 years between the 2. I just pray that Stella will follow in her footsteps in loving God.

I could write a novel trying to explain all of the things that have been flooding my heart and mind as of late, but I won't. I will say that Joel and I haven't been consistently going to church. We didn't feel like our former church was where we were really supposed to be. We didn't feel comfortable there since we've had Stella, but of the tons of churches in town, we didn't know exactly where we should go. I felt like I didn't want a young church since we were part of Cornerstone's church plant, and our last church was only in its 3rd year when we started going there. I'm always drawn to new and modern, but at this season in our lives, we don't have the time or motivation to be a part of that. We wanted something grounded and stable, with an incredibly diverse congregation. I hope no one takes offense to this, but I was actually yearning to be around some lifelong Christians - people who have pretty much been Christians their whole lives. I won't go into a detailed explanation of this, but if you are a lifelong Christian, you'll probably understand where I'm coming from. Newer and older Christians tend to have different expectations of other Christians. If you want me to explain more, just ask. We went to Eastview, where my family went for at least 10 years? We were running late, so we didn't put Stella in the nursery, so Joel was in the hall watching the monitor most of the time while I was in the sanctuary. It was amazing. It wasn't the sermon, the aesthetics, or the worship. I just needed to commune with God, surrounded by believers, with no worries and just enough anonymity/privacy. I felt so great afterward. We talked with the nursery peeps and got all the info, so we're going to continue going there. It's kind of funny that I wind up back at the place where my faith really began, and with Mike Baker, who was my youth pastor and is now the senior pastor. I just felt safe and at home...

Stay tuned for some Halloween pics:)