Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little love bug.

One year ago this was happening.

Now I'm chasing Ellerbe Anne around and playing like there's no tomorrow. What a fabulous little miracle she is.

Before having her in my life I was of the mentality that kids were awesome. Incredible in fact. But it stemmed from the thought that it would be a great thing to do. To work and strive to do my best to depend on Jesus and raise a little girl that loved Him and desired Him above all else.

Well, that is definitely part of why my little love is so wonderful. BUT. It's so much more. She's not just a task given to me to complete. But a gift given in love to enjoy.

Ellerbe Anne, you are so wonderful because you are just a really good, sweet gift given to me by a kind, good, caring Father in heaven. With that in mind, I will do all that I can to teach you how good God is and how worth it it is to center all of your life around Him.

We had one killer party for her 1st birthday party. It was simple and so much fun. (Let's be honest, the party was really for the adults.) Here are a few snapshots of our fun filled day.

 Daddy and the big 1 year old.

 Saying hello to her sweet friends, Brooks. 

It was a pretty happening party.

That's a lot of babies.

Leah, Caroline, Katie and little Caroline made it out. Love these ladies!

Her birthday mobile. Girl rides in style.

Presents. Hudson was SUPER excited about all of them.

Gigi McBride came out to celebrate too! She was my sweet sweet coworker at Parmer Lane Elementary whom I love dearly :)

Liv and the little ladies. I think Elle was a bit overwhelmed.

GG, Daisy, Hudson and Elle. Love that they were partying on the blanket together.

Pretty cakes and cupcakes from Belly's Bakeshop. (If you're in the DFW area, check her out. Lucky for us, Aunt Kailey drove them down. Thanks Aunt K!)

Smash Cake!

She cried when everyone cheered after she busted into her cake. 

Daddy had to show her how it's done.

Emmy was sneaking cupcakes. She's crafty with her sweets.

Happy Birthday, sweet little one. Thank you for being such a tangible picture of God's intense love for His children and for poignantly illustrating the infinite sacrifice of giving His Son. You are a beautiful gift.

A Handy Dandy Go-To

I've been so crafty and creative lately. (Creativity is relative, my friends.) I've even busted out the sewing machine. AND USED IT! Successfully, I might add.

Usually I just get stuck threading the bobbin. After taking 30 minutes to figure out why no fabric is being sewed together. i know. i know. I claim nothing more than amateur sew-er.

Well, with the help of a few thorough, all-be-it cheesy YouTube tutorials on how to thread the bobbin, what a straight stitch is, and other embarassingly basic things, etc. I made a few VERY cute onesies! Complete with ruffles on the butt! I can only show you one, because I have yet to give away the others and I don't want to ruin it. :)

All that to say, I spent 3 days drowning in crafts when I wasn't corralling the sweetest little walker in all the land and I completely abandoned all housekeeping. Sorry, dear husband of mine. Dinners included leftovers and sandwiches. And one really great salad. Which is the reason for this post. It's such a delicious and easy salad that I have to share.

I don't have any pictures. Because Tyler and I literally ate every little bit of it. And I was ravenous after all my crafting and didn't have the presence of mind to think about this post before the frenzy. You'll just have to trust my words that it's delicious.

Tastiest Asian Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

-Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast (about 1 per person) Grilled and sliced thin

-Your choice of lettuce. (My favorite is Spring Mix, but all we had last night was Romaine, which was also crispy and delicious.)

-Grated Carrots

-Red Bell Pepper cut into thin strips

-Cucumber sliced thin

-Snow Peas (We didn't have any last night, and it was still fabulous)

-Totilla Strips or crumbled Tortilla Chips

Other great additions:

-Peanuts

-Avocado

-Zucchini

-Cilantro

-Sprouts

You get the idea. Just take any veggies you've got in the fridge and throw them in there.

Dressings- BOTH are crucial to the tastiness of this dish

Honey Lime Dressing:

1/2 cup lime juice
4 tsp honey mustard
1/3 cup + 1 Tbs honey
4 Tbs vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced fine
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Peanut Sauce:
4 Tbs peanut butter
4 Tbs soy sauce
4 Tbs hot water
4 Tbs honey
1 Tb ground ginger

Directions:

1. Toss veggies of choice and thinly sliced grilled chicken together.

2. Mix dressing in separate jars. or large measuring cups. whatever works.

3. Serve yourself a generous and mostly healthy portion.

4. Enjoy.

Easy. You're welcome.

And because everyone loves a good baby update :)

Elle is most definitely walking. I thought, for some reason, it would take much longer for her to figure out that she could actually GET places on her feet than it did. A couple of days ago, I found her toddling across the living room. And she hasn't stopped. She's OFFICIALLY official. Sheesh. Where's my little teeny tiny baby girl? I'm not going to be one of those sappy, "I MISS MY NEWBORN" moms. But, there is a twinge of sadness in watching her grow into a little girl. I can't say that I MISS my teeny tiny because I am so much in love with my on-the-brink-of-toddlerhood lady. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I never thought fondly of my tiny, cuddly, swaddled, coo-ing baby girl and got a little sad because that's gone forever for her.

The little walker with a freshly busted lip. Looking especially pathetic and sweet. She got lots of cuddles after this mishap.

I'm going to go look at all the pictures of Elle before she was 6 months and cry now. Kidding.

Introducing...

Elle's new skill! About 2 weeks ago, Elle (drum roll please...) took her first steps!! Crazy, right?

She's been pulling up and cruising around since 7 months or so, but I didn't think she'd take off this soon. Wait. Let me be clear. She definitely has not taken off by any stretch of the word. It's really more like a lunge and her sweet little chubby feet pitter patter behind.

Literally the day before it happened, she started standing unaided for about 20 seconds at a time and I thought, "It looks like she's just going to take off any day now!"I didn't really believe that she would, it just looked like she was stable enough to do it.

Fast forward to the next day after all the standing. I was putting laundry away, and Elle was standing beside my dresser undoing all my nice folding out of the bottom drawer that I was putting things into. (This is my life, people.) I squatted down to play with her to distract her (and because she's way more fun than putting away laundry...) and she took a step towards me! I thought that I surely imagined it. Later that evening, interested to see if she would do it again, I held my arms out, she got REAL excited and then took 3 big girl steps towards me! It was WONDERFUL!

I definitely teared up and screamed so loud that I think I scared her from doing it again for a while. (I think we're past that now.) I caught a slight glimpse of what it's like to watch your child really excel at something. I was (am) SO proud of her! Up until that moment, it's been little milestones. These are FOR SURE exciting and rewarding, but watching her figure out something like walking made me sympathize a little bit more with crazy parents who push their kids to ridiculous limits at things like piano, basketball and UIL Calculator. (The latter, of which, I took part in and won a few ribbons for. My parents were not crazy people. I genuinely liked it. You can laugh.) It's wonderful to watch your child succeed. WONDERFUL! I'm thankful that Jesus is giving me and will continue to give me perspective on my role in helping her develop her gifts so that her worldly success is neither my identity nor my goal, but I get it.

Crazy, screaming volleyball mom, I get you.

It's not right, but I get you.

And just to prove to you that my 9 1/2 month old took steps, here's a video some friends took while babysitting for us so we could have a night out. (Thanks again, Justin and Tara!) And, Justin really loves Elle, despite his negative reinforcement. :)

happy walking little walker!

Recounting a Year Full of Firsts...

How is it already 2012? Something mysterious and twilight-zoney must happen after you have a child. Time seems to move 10 times faster than it did before. Can I get an "amen" mamas?

Because it's a brand new year, and because it's fun to look back fondly on the year that has just past, I wanted to take some time to reflect on 2011. Tyler and I did this together and it was great. It will be great for me to have it documented here.

[It's long. Please don't feel obligated to recount the details of my year with me. :) ]

2011 in review:

January : I started the year off very pregnant. See below.

I returned back to my 3rd grade classroom after a much needed winter break for the last time for a while.

February : We celebrated our 3rd Valentine's Day together. I tried to make a romantic dinner for us to eat in our little Town Lake Apartment. I bought Filets, but neither of us were sure how to grill a steak. They didn't turn out well.

Katie and I sent out the girls we had been discipling for close to 2 years to lead their own groups. We were all a little sad, but we knew it was right. And it has been SO incredible to watch as God grows them into women of faith and love. So many cool things happening with them. 1 off to DC , 1 leading her own missional community in the Music Building and seeing God move and change people's hearts, 1 off to work in Houston, 1 still looking and waiting :) but all of them are growing in obedience to Scripture and love for God. So cool to be a part of.

March: With my due date fast approaching, I treasured every little "last" as my life before parenthood. Here's what I did on my Spring Break with Elle safely tucked inside my belly. While my life most certainly does not look like that now, it's not quite the calamity I imagined it would be at that point.

April: At the beginning of this month we had our first fake-out hospital visit. That was fun. (Or very not fun and exhausting for me the next day at school.)

I said "goodbye" to my sweet sweet 3rd graders and fellow teachers. Oh, how I miss them.

At the end of the month we welcomed this little booger home.

What a beauty.

We also learned our limit for exhaustion. We struggled to communicate. I struggled (read, still struggle) with control over our daughter. I wanted things done my way and had a tough time making way for Tyler to learn to be a daddy. God has brought me a long way... (blogpost on that to come soon...)

May: We lived life in a newborn induced fog. I was always tired. I honestly don't remember much about this month.

I do remember how anxious I got when it came time for bed. Nights with Elle were hard at that point.

Now that I think about it, I remember Tyler preaching at our church (The Austin Stone Community Church) for the very first time. It was a very big deal and such a huge and weighty task. He did fabulous. He preached on how God calls us into a family. Hear it here. (It's the first one. Titled: Missional Community: Living as Jesus' Family.)

June: We packed up all our belongings in boxes and sat in the living room and sipped coffee while movers hoisted everything onto their big ole truck and drove it all to Maple Hollow Trail in North Austin.

[side bar: Movers are THE WAY to go. Especially in the summer. Especially with a new born. Worth every penny, I say.]

July: We went on our very first "vacation" as a family of 3. Vacation is in quotations because it's not quite "vacation" with a 3 month old. I learned very quickly that Elle could really care less if we were at the lake or the beach or in a Motel 6 outside of Austin. My perceptions of vacation have since been corrected, and I have been able to enjoy them for what they are and not get annoyed because they aren't what they used to be. :) See? God's at work in my heart.

(Kidding. I am hopeful and CERTAIN that he has done much bigger and more eternal things in me than shifting my view of vacation.)

August: After being pregnant and working (also known as: had no energy for anything but laying on the couch and eating rocky road most evenings) and then adjusting to life with a little one (also known as: can't write your own name or remember if you ate that day,) it was this month that I finally felt normal. I had resurfaced and realized that I. Was. Missing. Out. I realized that I had a lot of insecurity that had been festering in my inability (or unwillingness, perhaps...) to do anything but what was in front of my face.

It was good to be reminded that I'm not accepted or valuable or more loved because of what I'm doing. But because Jesus has called me His.

Thanks, Tyler.

Seems like I may have learned that lesson a time or two before.

Hm....

September: Tyler and I spent our first nights away from our sweet girl. We were in the same hotel, but my parents kept little E while I got my first full night of sleep in 4 months. However, much like vacation, a full night of sleep has to be enjoyed for what it is now and not what it used to be. (The constant worry about how she's doing and discomfort that comes with not nursing when you're used to takes away a tad bit from the peace of a full night of sleep.) However different it may have been, it was marvelous and I love that my mom was so excited to do that for us. :) Thanks, KK, you're the best!

October: I turned 26.

Elle got 2 teeth.

I started meeting with a group of young mamas that live in my neighborhood in hopes that we would continually challenge each other to be obedient to scripture and love Jesus more and more. This has been so good and challenging for my soul.

I also got baptized this month!

The story behind my baptism is this: I was baptized when I was 9. Mostly because my mom encouraged me to, because our pastor at the time said I should be. Looking back, I did have a desire to know God, but had no understanding of the implications of God becoming man to take my deserved punishment and giving me undeserved love and acceptance. I was baptized out of a love and obedience to my parents. My mom said I should, so I did! However, as my love and affection for Christ has grown out of the knowledge of the depth of my sin and the heights of His perfection, I began to feel that I needed to be baptized again. This time out of a knowledge of the symbolism and proclamation of the event: That I was a new creation, buried with Christ in His death and raised to walk in the newness of life in His resurrection. Also, because I ultimately want to be obedient to Jesus in this life. Because I love Him and trust Him as King. If He says to be baptized in faith, I want to walk in that.

It was so special to have Tyler baptize me. I also got baptized alongside Tyler's cousin Luke and a good friend, James Ornelas. Such a good day and beautiful evidence of the way God doesn't let go of me. Even in my obstinate disobedience.

November: The ladybug's first Thanksgiving! We got to see both sides of our family, which is always such a blessing.

After much anguish over Elle's crazy sleeping habits, we enlisted the help of a very experienced friend. She's had 5 kids and has gotten all of them to sleep through the night at a reasonable age. Those are some serious credentials. It was with her help that we moved Elle to a 4 hour nursing schedule. (She was still nursing every 2 hours. I had no idea that that was too much. But apparently, nursing only ever 2 hours doesn't keep her tummy as full at night.) And we fully introduced solids. I had only been giving her about one meal a day from about 5 1/2 months up to this point. Here's what our schedule looks like now:

7:30 wake up and nurse

8:30 solid breakfast

10 morning nap

11:30 wake up and nurse

12:45 or 1 solid lunch

2:30 nap

4 wake up and nurse

5:45 solid dinner

8 bottle and bedtime!

(giving Elle a bottle before bed has been so helpful for me to know exactly how much she ate, that way if she wakes up in the night I know if she's hungry or not and I don't fall into the trap of nursing her because I think she might be hungry and it turns into a nursing dependency. Which, I know nothing about. I've never done that. Ever.)

Granted, this is just a skeleton. She just got done teething (and, is working on another one. 5 down, 15 more to go! Sigh...) and that means she will NOT nap longer than 45 minutes. Since we're letting her figure out how to put herself to sleep at this point, that also might mean that she sleeps until 8:30 or 9 if it took her awhile to fall asleep the night before.

**I am very proud to announce, however, that my sweet, precious, wonderful, beautiful little girl slept for 11 hours STRAIGHT last night. This. is. a. big. deal. people! She only cried for 7 minutes and slept until 7:30. She even woke up around 6, cried for a few minutes and just as I was stepping out of the fog to get her up, thinking that she was probably hungry at that point, she put her little self back to sleep. Hoping that this becomes normal in our lives.

December: Tyler and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a wonderful meal at Uchiko. Very seriously the best and most interesting meal I have ever had. It was great. We recounted what a great year in our marriage it has been. Our friendship and enjoyment of one another continues to grow. And as the Lord works in my heart to change me and make me more like Him (very, very slowly sometimes...) I've grown in my capacity to trust Tyler. Not because Tyler is infallible, but because God is perfect and wise and perfectly placed Tyler as my husband. To refine and shape me. All that to say, God is gracious and loves my husband and has made him very wise and trustworthy when it comes to leading our family. He's wonderful. I'm very thankful to have been married to him for 3 years and excited about however many more years God gives us together.

We celebrated Gods Gift to us with our little girl for the first time! It was a blast. She didn't quite care about unwrapping anything, but loved pulling bows off packages. We didn't develop any traditions this year, but began talking about how we'd like to do Advent next year.

We ended the year with a few friends at our house for dinner and kicked them all out by 11 because Tyler had to preach the next day and needed rest.

Wow. What a wonderful and blessed year it has been! So many firsts! Thankful!

Life and 8 month olds...

This little lady is officially 8 months old (on 12/23.) Time has absolutely flown. In the name of documentation, here are some things that are new in her world:

-Eating finger foods like a champ. She would probably prefer solely eating finger foods, because whenever I bust out that little plastic spoon and the pureed goodness it's war. (Slight exaggeration, she's actually a very good eater. She just enjoys feeding herself and doesn't seem to enjoy as much when she doesn't have control.)

-Crawling everywhere. She was a little wobbly and slow at first (starting around 7 months) but she is actually quite speedy now.

-Pulling up on anything and everything that her little chubby hands can reach. Quite often that includes my legs.

-Has FOUR teeth! She got her first two teeth (the bottom middle 2) at about 5 months and the two on either side of those teeth broke through yesterday. I love her little snaggle-tooth smile :)

-Making raspberry sounds. She loves to play the imitation game. If you blow a raspberry at her, she'll do it back to you. So much fun.

-Waving! She started this when her Great Grandpa was waving at her on Christmas and all of a sudden, a sweet little hand went up and down in the air! Sometimes she puts her whole arm into it, sometimes she just grabs the air with her hand. Love seeing her learn and associate words with actions.

-(Speaking of words...) I think she has a growing understanding of the word "no"... actually "no ma'am" which is what we say to her most frequently. Tyler and I have both seen her stop what she's doing when we say, "No ma'am!" firmly. Still hasn't worked in trying to teach her not to stand in her crib or in the bath tub. I feel like my life lately has been spent sitting/laying her back down and saying, "No ma'am. Elle, we don't stand in the crib/bathtub." Sheesh

-Still crying herself to sleep... this has been not so fun for me. Or anyone really. It brings lots of anxiety and stress. We decided, after we were done traveling for the holidays, to buckle down. I committed to not going in and interacting with her for as long or as often. It. Has. Been. ROUGH. I think, in large part, due to her teeth coming through. I've struggled with this, because everything in me wants to abandon our plan because she's been teething. I want to blame all her sleeping struggles on this. And it MAY be that, but I don't think it's wise for me to cave in and rock her to sleep or let her sleep with us every night because she's hurting. I've been giving her baby ibuprofen and trying to stick with it. There have been several days where she has cried right through every nap and then falls asleep eating in the evening because she's so exhausted. We're on day 4 of this bootcamp and I'm giving it until Sunday. Hopefully we'll see some progress by then. Progress at this point would look like less than 45 minutes of crying :(. And naps longer than 30 minutes after falling asleep. Not fun for anyone, I say.

[We did have one night where she fell asleep after only 2 minutes of crying AND put herself back to sleep in the middle of the night after only 20 minutes of crying. I think this was God's gift to me to help me press on. I can totally handle 2 minutes of crying!]

I hate to end on that note. Because this has been the best month by far.

Building more than I see...

I meet weekly with a group of young moms in our neighborhood. We mostly spend time processing through scripture, which is good, necessary and challenging for all of us. But, today we spent time sharing how we were doing.

Mostly prompted because I have been struggling. Struggling with the insecurity and discontentment that "merely" taking care of a child can bring to a heart that's not finding it's worth in the truth that God calls me worthy in Jesus.

I found that the lot of us were all struggling with this insecurity and discontentment of staying at home. Are we really doing anything that's important? Are our husbands mentally rolling their eyes as we explain the stress of a baby that didn't take as long a nap as they should? What are we really spending our days doing?

Blah.

But here's where I'm encouraged and uplifted. The gospel. God, wrapped in flesh, became a baby. He became small and insignificant. He spit up and cried and pooped on Himself. and His mother spent her days cleaning Him up, rocking Him to sleep and taking care of Him. And one day, Jesus would bridge the eternal divide that existed between His Father and creation. One day, Jesus would defeat sin and death. Crazy. Mary's mundane was made into the greatest gift humanity has ever been given, and God was glorified in the small things.

Here's what John Piper has to say about it:

"There is a principle here that applies to you and me: God takes small, imperfect things and builds them into a habitation for his glory. O, how we should take courage in our little spheres of influence! And is this not the message of Advent and Christmas?

What more appropriate word could God have said to Mary as Jesus was growing up: Take courage, young mother, you build more than you see. And so it is with every one of us. Nothing you do is a trifle if you do it in the name of God. He will shake heaven and earth to fill your labor with splendor. Take courage, you build more than you see."

My heart is filled with hope because bottles and laundry are not the end of what's being built here. My heart is filled with hope because I am not the dictator of how things will turn out. My heart is filled with hope in thinking on how God made good on His promise to save me when Jesus was born.

You build more than you see...

Independence...

A little [embarassing] fact about me. I used to think I was an awesome speller. But then I noticed that I always spell "independence" "independAnce." Maybe I thought it made the word more fun?

Which leads me to my next point. Teaching my kid independence has not been as fun as I dreamed it would be. (Actually, I don't think I thought about it much until recently.) At least at this point. Currently, we're attempting to teach her to be independent of us (me, really) in falling asleep. In the past 7 months I have been vehemently against letting Elle "Cry-It-Out" (CIO). There was something that curled up and died inside of me as a mom in not soothing my child when she's crying for me. I couldn't and just wouldn't handle it. I researched articles and studies that proved why letting Elle CIO was harmful for her. (There's not much... if you're interested.) So, for awhile, even though I had to RUN to her every couple of hours to prevent the cry from escalating to supersonic levels, I stuck by my stance of not letting my child cry. It was too painful for me and for her. And while rocking/nursing your cuddly, ever-growing-and-changing-not-a-baby-for-much-longer baby to sleep really is as wonderful as it sounds and I would do it every single night if I could, it's the constant waking and crying because they don't know how to calm themselves back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night that is absolutely exhausting. Not just for me. For Tyler, too.

After a series of somewhat heated discussions on the topic, I realized my sin in this area. I wanted absolute comfort in raising my child. Even if that meant losing sleep. I didn't want to hurt for her. I didn't want to even think that she might be in pain. This is motherhood, though, right? We want to keep our kids comfortable and happy and snuggled up safely in our arms, even if that means we never get any sleep. Even as I'm writing this, I'm fighting the urge to think, "But that's so noble of me! To give up my rest for the comfort of my daughter! What a great mom I am!"

But is our kids' happiness and comfort really the appropriate measure of success for us as mothers? I think America would like for us to believe that it is. But if I'm looking at parenting through the lens of who Jesus is and what He has created me for, success in parenting would be to usher my child into an independent love and worship of her creator. I don't want her to be a woman who says, "Yeah, my mom really loves Jesus" when asked about her faith. Or even the, "I was raised in a Christian home" answer that most of us utter when asked what we believe.

Thus began the first of many adventures in teaching Elle to be independent. Letting her cry. It has been every bit as hard as I thought it would be (though, not quite as intense and awful as it was the one time we let her cry when she was only 4 months old. If you're thinking of doing it, I would wait until 6-7 months-ish. It makes such a difference that I know her different cries.) I haven't let her cry for more than 10 minutes at a time at this point. (about 4 days in) And I do pick her up and sometimes even rock her a bit if she's super worked up. Maybe this will prolong the process, who knows? But I'm leaving room for that ever intrusive motherly instinct that some books tell you to squash in the name of efficiency. And, I will tell you that it. has. worked. She has actually put herself to sleep a few times. And last night, she even slept until 6 am. 6 IN THE MORNING, PEOPLE! Without making a peep after going to bed. (Well, after the crying...)

[Subsequently, it should have been the best night of sleep I've had since she was 2 months old when she slept 8 hours at a time... but I woke up every hour wondering when she was going to wake up. Go figure. Still! It was a win for the David family!]

However, there is something so so sad about letting your sweet child cry herself to sleep. But, there are going to be lots of those moments, I'm sure. Encouraging her to go to overnight camp even though she is terrified... Teaching her to love and deal with mean kids at school... Disciplining her for making foolish choices... None of these things will be fun. I will probably cry. I will probably hurt for her. I will probably want to swoop down to save her, and I will on occasion! Afterall, God swooped down to save me, and that is what grace is, right?

But, right now, I am embarking on the first of many journeys in teaching Elle to be independent. (Not indpendAnt.)

For the record. I tried lots of other methods in my opposition to letting her cry. Pick Up/Put Down from the Baby Whisperer being the most successful. It just was not sustainable overnight. BUT, this method did help Elle not to be dependent on nursing to sleep and if you have an iron will and a husband with an iron will, then I say DO IT! It's a great alternative to letting your kid CIO. Despite what some doctors and authors say, letting them cry isn't the only way, but other ways just didn't work for our family. The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg is a great resource and is by far the best and most moderate (in regards to attachment parenting vs. putting your kids on a strict schedule) parenting book I've read. Which, I really value.

And, what kind of mother would I be if I didn't leave you with a little picture to oogle? :)

And, just because she's even cuter awake than she is asleep :)