children's book.

Believe it or not, I have developed an interest in various baby items - things they need and things that just make our lives a little easier. Example: the swing that takes up the majority of our apartment. But a some days a happy baby is priceless and I can deal with half the living space - you know?

One of my favorites are the children's books and I cannot wait to read to Maddie. In fact, even though she has no appreciation for the words, I have read to her a few times already - she does look at the pictures, which is good enough for me. So today, I started reading this one - the newest addition to her growing library. This book is a simplified version of God's word, designed for little ears (but maybe bigger than Madeline's ears).

"Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn't do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing. It's about God and what he has done."

Bam. And God uses a children's book to pull me out of my selfish mindset, reminding me that I exist only to glorify Him. It's so simple, but I forget every single day. Today, this book was not meant for Maddie's ears, but for mine. And I am looking forward to good conversations with my daughter someday, but not today as she has fallen asleep to my apparently boring voice...

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madeline noelle.

Well, needless to say, my hands have been tied lately with mom duties... and it's been the best and most significant transition I've ever been through! My new daughter, Madeline, brings Brenton and I so much joy and thank God for a happy and healthy baby who even lets her mom rest from time to time!

I want to share with you the story of her first birthday and the best day of our lives. It's funny actually. When I was pregnant, especially in the beginning, I dreaded hearing too many scary details about labor and delivery. But now that it's all over, I am always interested in hearing what others have to say -- at the same time, it wasn't long ago when that day scared me half to death - so I'll try to remember to choose my words carefully...

For the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy, the doctor and everyone else was telling me that the baby would be coming any day. (I shared some details on this here in a previous post.) I was slowly dilating and my body was preparing for labor. I'll tell you what. Playing the waiting game isn't so much fun. I couldn't do much physically, couldn't be too far from the hospital, and it was in the high 80's and 90's outside which is no place for a pregnant lady. So I found myself enjoying some 24 in the air conditioning while eating too much watermelon and trying to count contractions. On July 3, I was feeling "crampy" for most of the day. Brenton came home from work in the morning and stayed with me until the contractions started coming on stronger but were still not 5 minutes apart - at that point we decided to go in... so at about 10:00 pm we left for the hospital, feeling unsure if we were doing the right thing or if we were going to be sent home.

When we got up to our room, the nurse hooked me up to a monitor to watch my contractions. She did an exam (about 11:00 pm) and said that I was 5 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced! (Yay we're not going home!!) Right after that, a midwife came in to break my water and the anesthesiologist followed her with the good stuff for my epidural - (I knew ahead of time that I wanted one, so it worked out where I only had hard contractions for about 20 minutes.) For the next hour I laid there numb and overall, pretty comfortable. The nurse came back to do another exam and I was at 7 centimeters - only 3 more to go. An hour after that, I was at 10 and ready to push... I could not believe everything was happening so fast. 3 hours ago, we weren't even sure if we would be staying and now Maddie is about to make an appearance. I honestly think I was still kind of in shock that all of this was actually happening, I didn't have time to get nervous. After about 30 minutes of pushing, at 2:42 am on July 4th, our sweet little redhead was born - 7 pounds, 4.5 ounces and 19 inches long. She was beautiful then and even more beautiful today at 6 weeks old.

I'm so thankful for an easy pregnancy, labor, and delivery and for every day with Madeline since we've been home...

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