bye bye 2008

What a great 2008! I am so thankful for the many ways God blessed our family this year. In February my morning sickness went away, and we found out we’d be having a little girl baby. In March we went to South Africa, and I got to feel Evalana move. In April we named our baby girl Evalana Christabelle. In May I graduated with my MSW. In July Riley died, but it all worked out in the best scenario possible. At the end of July, my grandma went Home to be with the Lord. On the morning of August 1st, Evalana was born! It was so fun to be able to see her face! In September I gave up wheat, milk, eggs, corn, soy, fish, and peanuts for Miss Picky Tummy, and Evalana started sleeping for 9 hours at night. In October, I returned to work part-time at Westside with my wonderful job as the adoption ministry coordinator, and Joshua took a job at Fishnet Security. Joshua and I celebrated being married for two years, and Evalana started laughing (I love hearing her giggle). In November we got to take a trip to Palm Springs, and Evalana enjoyed the warm weather and her first swim. In December we made a promise that we’ll raise Evalana in a Christ-focused home at her baby dedication, and Joshua turned 30. What a great year! We’re looking forward to seeing God working in 2009!
Here’s a video of Evalana at our new year’s eve party (just us at home doing our regular bedtime stuff). Evalana just discovered that she can bend over backwards and thinks it’s fun. She spits up because I tried eating a little egg earlier this week.

our kumquat baby

A year ago we got our first picture of Evalana. She was 10 weeks in-the-belly old, and one inch long, about the size of a kumquat (probably close to the current size of her big toe). It is amazing to me that in one year, God could make her into this giant over two feet long. Here's from our journal last year:

There really is a live baby in me! Date: 12/31/2007

Wow. I'm so thankful that we didn't get to hear the heartbeat last Friday because it was amazing to see this little baby moving around in there! What a miracle! I wasn't really worried about the baby, but it's still huge to know that there really is a baby in there! We could see the baby's little heart beating, and it was jumping around with its arms and legs. Joshua, my mom, and I all got to see it. We did get one picture that i've posted under our baby albums section. Actually I had to take a picture of the picture to put it on here, so maybe we'll be able to post a clearer one later, but you can see the baby's head at the left end. The baby's nose and jaw are the whitish parts sticking up. In front of the face is the baby's hand, with the thumb at the top and the fingers below it. The baby's bottom is at the right side of the picture with the legs above that. I'm sure this baby looks like most two-months-in-the-tummy babies, but this one is in my belly! What an amazing blessing from God. And we really appreciate all your prayers.

Stranger anxiety

Evalana has been going to childcare at church with Virginia and Brittany since she was 8 weeks old. We get five hours of childcare at Westside on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unfortunately, due to a stupid Kansas law that regulates non-profit employee childcare, this will end in February. Today Evalana was only in childcare for an hour this morning and a half hour this afternoon because she decided she wanted me. Babies generally experience stranger anxiety from about 8 to 18 months, but Evalana started hers at 3 ½ months. Think there’s any chance she’ll decide to finish it earlier too? I kind of liked being able to hand her off to other people. Oh well. I guess in other parts of the world (where independence isn’t such a value), they don’t even realize that their baby goes through this because they don’t leave their baby when they’re so young anyway.

Christmas with family

Well the Christmas celebrations are over. Christmas is such a fun time. We celebrated with Joshua’s parents in Arkansas a few weekends ago. It was interesting trying to get all our driving in around evalana’s sleeping time, but God certainly answered our prayers, and Evalana did great most of the way. Although we try our best to make Christmas about celebrating Jesus and not about the gifts, I was so excited for the gifts this year! Joshua and I had wanted to keep evalana’s stuff to a minimum since most of the toys and things aren’t necessary and just use money and space, but after taking care of this girl, I realized that even though Evalana doesn’t need toys, her mommy would really love to have some. I wanted some things that could keep her entertained and safe while I do something exciting like eat breakfast or throw some diapers in the laundry. We did get a few toy things for Christmas, and they have been wonderful! We got to go to church with my mom on Christmas Eve and then come home to a great dinner that Joshua made and served on my Great Grandma Steever’s dishes. Evalana’s getting better at riding in the car, but she still gets upset in her car seat in the evenings, so we skipped looking at lights on our drive home. Christmas morning we got to open our gifts here at home. Joshua got the Chronicles of Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. I got the Duggars’ book, 20 and Counting. And Evalana got a few baby Bible and Christmas story books. That afternoon we went to my mom’s to celebrate with my siblings. And yesterday we went to my dad’s to celebrate (picture with my siblings). Evalana ended up getting some cute clothes, a few new diapers, a Christmas ornament, a few books, a few chewy/noisy/texture toys, a musical table toy, a play mat gym toy, and an entertainment saucer toy. One of my favorite things was having Joshua home and not working for the long weekend, and I’m looking forward to that again this week!

Celebrating Christmas

My friend Heather wrote about celebrating Christmas better than I would write, so I'm sharing her post at http://aleanaomi.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/merry-christmas/.

day at home

We were planning to go visit Joshua's grandpa today, but our alarm went off at 5am, and the weather didn't look good. We checked the forecast for our drive, and it said thunderstorms, large hail, 70 mph winds, tornado watch, freezing rain, and snow, so we’ve decided to stay home. We were looking forward to seeing his grandparents, but it's also nice to enjoy this day at home. We got to sleep in a little, Joshua's been doing all sorts of cleaning, and I'm reading the Duggers' book (which i recommend) that Joshua gave me for Christmas. It's like we're on Christmas break! :-)

Merry Christmas!

What a joy to celebrate the Savior God sent to us as a baby. Merry Christmas!

Christmas time!

We’ve come up with some thoughts on how we’d like to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas time with our new and future family. We’d love to hear other suggestions, too, if you have some to share. So far this year we’re a little behind schedule with our decorating (see the picture of our sad Christmas tree). But we are very excited to celebrate Christmas. Here are our current plans for our Christmas time traditions (when it works for what we have going on with visiting extended family, too).
Thanksgiving Eve – make white hot chocolate, marshmallows, wassail, and spritz and go watch the Christmas fireworks at Longview Lake.
Thanksgiving – have dinner together with as many family and friends as we can. Listen to the Rainey’s Thanksgiving story. Turn on outdoor Christmas lights. Watch the plaza lights turn on on TV. Read the biblical Christmas story.
Day after Thanksgiving – decorate cards for our stocking thank you notes to each other. Put up tree and decorate for Christmas.
December – celebrate Advent with a Christmas countdown candle, read an advent story each night, write thank yous to each other and put them in the stockings to open on Christmas.
Christmas Eve – watch The Nativity Story. Go to church. Drive around to look at Christmas lights.
Christmas – read the biblical Christmas story and remember that we’re celebrating the day that Jesus, our Savior, was born. We give gifts because God gave us the gift of Jesus, and we share gifts to celebrate. Open stockings. Read our thank you notes and reflect on this last year. Have a good breakfast together. Open gifts (we’ll just have small gifts and no Santa). One gift should be something the family can do together within the next week. Have wheat angel food cake with a big candle in the middle and sing happy birthday to Jesus. Take a picture and write about our Christmas celebrations in our Christmas memories scrapbook.
New Year’s Eve – we talk about how God has blessed us in the last year and discuss what we think He might be challenging us to do in the next year.

doggie back ride

i'm so glad evalana and samson get along so well. here's a little video of our Saturday morning fun.

prayer request for joshua's grandpa

Grandpa got his test results back Friday, and they indicate that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Please, as the Lord leads, remember to lift up my grandpa and ultimately the rest of my family. Couple of specifics if you are intersted.

> Pray that no matter what, my family, and especially my grandpa, would remain and become increasingly convinced that God was good yesterday, is good today, and will be good tomorrow.

> Pray that God's will would be done in all of our lives, especially grandpa's, and that we would all receive all that God has to show us about His character through this.

> Grandpa plans to fight back medically as hard and as fast as possible. Please pray that, as the Lord wills it, they would get the very best treatment (they are looking into expedited admission to MD Anderson, a pretty advanced treatment facility in Houston), and that if He wills it, Grandpa might be healed of this disease.

> Please pray comfort for my Grandma and mother in particular.

> Please pray for healing, reconcilliation, and for God's will in the life of my estranged uncle who has not spoken to anyone in the family, including Grandpa, for many years.

> Finally, and most importantly, please pray that any family or friends of my Grandfather who do not know Jesus as their savior, would come to trust Him as a result of all of this and have their lives changed for all eternity. The truth is these are fleeting moments for all of us here on Earth - those who have been rescued through the Cross of God's Great Love have such an amazing life before them, both here on Earth, and in the real life to come.

EC & CD

Many people have recently asked me about how our EC (elimination communication) and CD (cloth diapering) is going. I love both of them!
ECing is great! I highly recommend it to everyone. We do it part-time, meaning that we keep Evalana in a diaper as backup most of the time. Some days I don’t catch much at all, and some days she stays in the same diaper most of the day when we get most pees in the potty. I pay attention to the timing of things and also if she fusses. If I hold her and cue her, if she needs to go, she’s gone in her lap potty, in her little potty, in the toilet, and outside. And she smiles every time she gets to go potty without a diaper on.
Over thanksgiving we used disposable diapers since we were traveling to California. I was surprised to find that I do not like them at all. They stink when she peed, and they leaked when she pooped. And they irritated her skin. We were glad to get back to our comfy cloth! CDing makes things so easy for us. And we don’t have to keep buying and throwing away diapers.
We’re so glad we’ve been able to EC and CD with Evalana! We’d be happy to share more with anyone who’s interested.

(Here's a link to an EC video, if you're interested).

another new friend!

Another of Evalana's friends was born this morning! Elizabeth Abigail Johnson was born to Sarah Beth and Tanner today. Yea! God is so amazing! She weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and is about 19 inches long. It sounds like the labor and birth all went quickly and just the way they had hoped. Elizabeth was born about 4:30am. God's creation is so wonderful.

happy birthday to the greatest daddy ever!

Today is Joshua's 30th birthday!

another laugh

i know i just posted a couple videos of her laughing, but she did the same thing again today, so here are a couple more. Her bottom two teeth are coming in, and a couple weeks ago she decided she likes joshua and me better than other people, so she had a difficult afternoon in childcare and didn't like the ride home in her car-seat, but, when we walked in the door, she started laughing at samson again.

Evalana's Baby Dedication

On Sunday we had Evalana's dedication at Westside. Joshua and I promised to raise her in a Christian home. Then we had prayer time with Schaun (video). It was wonderful to have so much of our family with us. We're so thankful to be blessed with our Evalana. Joshua and I look forward to doing our very best to teach Evalana about God's love and our need for Christ every day of her life.

funny puppy

We had a stressful ride home from work--Evalana cried most of the way, and it is snowing so the roads are slick and the traffic was slow. When we got home and walked in the door, Samson greeted us as usual, and Evalana laughed at him harder than i've seen her laugh at anything. Sorry for the bad video; i was holding Evalana and holding out the camera and couldn't see what i was recording.



i know it looks like i dropped her at the end of this one, but i promise i didn't.

Learning to Sew

Grandma gave Evalana her first sewing lesson today. They're working on her Christmas dress.

4 months

Evalana is 4 months old. She is getting to be such a little girl. She tries to grab things out of my hands. She now whines when she doesn’t get her way. She thinks she’s a big girl, so she usually prefers to sit or stand (with some balance help) rather than lying down like a baby. She still cries most of the time she’s in her car seat, but now that she’s able to play with toys, she does sometimes entertain herself rather than screaming. She’s also able to put herself to sleep now in her car seat or if she wakes up during the night. She likes to suck her thumb. She’s been drooling lots and chewing on anything she can, so teeth are probably on their way. Just a couple more months or so, and she’ll be able to eat food rather than only breast milk. I think she’ll really enjoy table food. There’s plenty to look forward to, but she’s changing so quickly. I like this baby time with her right now. I’m already looking forward to the newborn time with our next baby someday. I love holding this sweet girl, especially while she’s eating or napping. And we have great conversations together, especially while she’s naked on her changing pad. The EC is still going really well. Recently, though, Evalana has decided she’d rather pee standing up than sitting on her potty or being held. She is a funny girl.
She had her checkup today, and got updated stats:
Height: 24.75 inches = 71% (65% on the WHO breastfed chart)
Weight: 16 lbs, 11 oz. = 96% (90% on breastfed chart)
Head: 17 in. = 92% (97% on breastfed chart)

A year ago

Last year we got to tell all of our family over Thanksgiving that I was pregnant. Here are a couple of journal entries from our babysite last year:

Date: 11/26/2007
sharing the news
Well we've finally been able to tell all of our parents and siblings! What a great week for being able to share this news in person! And so much fun! All of the grandparents got a book on grandparenting and all of the aunts and uncles got onesies that said, "I love my aunt Michelle" or whatever name. It was so much fun to watch their reactions! This baby has 17 grandparents and great-grandparents, two uncles, five aunts, and five cousins :-). Now we're so excited to share the news with the rest of our wonderful friends and family!

happy news email
We're having a baby! Wahoo! We're only about 5 weeks along, so it's early, but neither of us are good at keeping secrets we're excited about. We know there are so many things that can happen to a little baby (currently the size of a sesame seed!), but we also know that this is a blessing from God and that he is in complete control, so it is wonderful to be able to trust His provision and faithfulness. Please join us in lifting up both mother and baby to the Lord in prayer. The baby is due July 26th. We should know a little more at the end of December or beginning of January. Thanks for sharing this exciting time with us! We were able to tell all of our parents and siblings in person this last week, so please share the news with whoever you'd like. You can stay updated on our baby news at babysites.com/sites/vaughnbaby. Love, Joshua and Rachel

i can swim!

Tompa and Nana have a big bathtub!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is nice here!

Watching Daddy hit some golf balls

Bocce ball





Thanksgiving buffet


They gave the kids a stuffed animal at the dinner, and I picked out the monkey. Maybe I liked that one because I also got to meet my Aunt Monkey (Jennifer) today.

I can fly!

Sitting around at home before we leave:

Ready to go on my first flight!

Waiting for the tram in Dallas (after a big diaper and clothing change):

Napping on the plane:

In Palm Springs, California!

First time experiencing laying in the grass:

Share the milk

About the first thing I do each morning is pump milk that Evalana will never drink. I generally get around 8-10 ounces, and I pour it into an ice cube tray, freeze it, and then dump it into a big freezer bag later in the day. This milk then goes to babies whose moms aren’t able to make any or enough milk. I currently work with milkshare.com, the Denver milk bank, and friends. Whether you need milk or want to give milk, those are great resources. I’ve found that milk sharing is much more common on the coasts and that most people around here have never heard of the idea. It seems funny to me that formula made from cows’ milk seems more natural to people than sharing human milk. If we had to feed Evalana formula, it would cost about $150/month to use organic formula, and she still wouldn't do well on it since all formulas seem to contain milk and/or soy, which Evalana doesn't like, so I can understand how important donated breastmilk would be for some babies. Evalana has been able to share her milk with an adopted baby in the KC area, and, because my diet is free of dairy, I’m working through the application process with the Denver milk bank since they need some milk free of cow’s milk protein. I am so thankful to be able to feed Evalana and still have leftovers to share. I would encourage any breastfeeding moms with extra frozen milk (or, even better, fresh breast milk if you can find someone close to share with) to look into sharing.
This makes me think of the Caedmon's Call song "Share the Well":
je ra, ji ra, ji ra, de ji ra, de ji, ji, ji
share the milk, share with your sister
share the milk my friend
it takes a lot of milk to feed all the babies
share the milk my friend
je ra, ji ra, ji ra, de ji ra, de ji, ji, ji

silly adults

The things people will do to try to get a baby to smile:

breastfed growth

I just guessed Evalana’s weight for the next year so that I could get her some clothes that might fit. I looked at the breastfed growth chart and just found the 90th percentile for each month since that's what she's always been. Then I got curious and plotted those against a normal weight chart. I have heard of doctors getting concerned when babies start dropping percentiles when they’re around six months old but that most doctors use an old growth chart which was made with formula-fed babies. Then, for babies who start out smaller, many doctors recommend supplementing with formula which can just make things worse because then the mom produces less milk. I’m sure there are times to be concerned about a baby’s low weight, but it makes me sad to see someone using formula for their baby when they didn’t want to. Besides, there are other options like donated breast milk and SNS, but I’ll write more about that later. Here’s the graph of the 90th percentile on the WHO’s breastfed chart plotted on a regular (CDC updated in 2000 formula and breastfed together) growth chart (Evalana would go from over 100% to around 80% on a regular growth chart).

Update: I know some people decide to use formula for various reasons. My frustration is with some medical professionals who don't give moms who are wanting to exclusively breastfeed all the information and options they should have and instead scare them about their baby's health when many times their small baby is growing normally.

scary creatures like birds and mice

When I was maybe four years old, a bird flew down our chimney, into our wood-burning stove. When my dad opened up the stove, a bird flew out, into the basement. The way I told the story was that “Mommy screamed, and Rachel cried.” Due to an attack chicken incident that my mom experienced when she was younger, my mom has never liked birds. She did a great job of passing her fear of birds on to my sister and me. While I think it might be nice for Evalana if she could not freak out when a bird flies by, I also sometimes think that maybe it could be good for her to learn that birds are scary and dangerous (you know, with their sharp beaks and claws and the way they fly right at you). I was reminded of the bird story when a couple nights ago I was feeding Evalana, and I saw a mouse run by. I did a backwards scream (or whatever it’s called when you take in a quick breath). I thought that was a fairly minor reaction, but as soon as I did it, Evalana stuck out her bottom lip and started crying. I calmed her down, and she got back to eating, but then Joshua was looking for the mouse and saw it, which made him jump, and I backwards screamed again, and Evalana cried again. It surprised me that she realized that I was scared. I hope I haven’t made Evalana scared of mice forever (at least they’re kind of cute and don’t have sharp beaks, but one did run up my grandma's pant leg once).

first snow

Last night Evalana slept about 10:00pm-9:00am. She and I both had a little bit of a cold, but we're feeling better, so apparently the sleep helped. Evalana woke up to her first snow and enjoyed looking out the window. Here she is laying on the floor with her doggie while Daddy made pancakes.

143 million orphans in the world

Sorry I haven't given updates this week. It's been a busy work week for me. Here are a couple of videos for you:

Miss Stuffy Nose says good morning after sleeping 9:30-7:30:

And here's a video on the estimated 143,000,000 orphans in the world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6WEcrfCIwI

www.onelifechild.org

December 7th baby dedication

On December 7th at 1:30pm, Evalana will have her baby dedication at Westside Family Church, and we'd love for you to come if you want. A baby dedication is when Joshua and I promise that we'll raise Evalana in a Christian manner. Several of Evalana's friends will also be dedicated at the same time. We'll attend the 11:30 church service before the baby dedication.

walking?

Joshua's not holding her weight or leaning her, just helping her to balance. Silly baby.

(The walking and crawling reflexes that a baby is born with are supposed to disappear at about 1 week after birth, so any seen after that are skills the baby has developed).

3 months

Evalana’s getting to be such a big girl. We just took some at-home measurements and came up with weight between 15 and 17 pounds (Joshua’s scale kept switching), which keeps her at about 95% (91st percentile on breastfed charts). Her length is 24.5 inches, which is 92% (85th on the breastfed chart). And her head is 17 inches, which is, of course 100%.
Evalana had two more vaccinations yesterday, and she did great; she cries much worse in her carseat than she did when she got her shots. Her next actual checkup is the first week of December. Oh, and for anyone thinking about getting the flu shot, especially pregnant or breastfeeding moms, if you decide to get the flu shot, make sure you get the mercury-free kind, and check out the aluminum content as well.
It still amazes me that God created her just a year ago. She just keeps getting more aware and observant of things and communicative every day. Each day she discovers new sounds she can make. Here’s a video of her making her new noise today.

active little girl

Here are some videos and pictures from this week.

Evalana tells a story








Evalana goes to the dog park


Evalana goes for a stroller walk

Evalana exercises