Happy Earth Day!!

I remember when I first learned about earth day. It was the 20th anniversary (1990) and there was a tv special which followed a long series of lessons in school about the earth. It was the first time I can actually remember being concerned about the environment, and I was pumped to reduce, reuse, recycle!

Times haven't changed that much. I still look forward to earth day each year, and I really credit my teachers that year with making it so fun for me. I honestly think that I wouldn't have such fond feelings about earth day if it hadn't been for that year in school. GO TEACHERS!

Now my passion for the environment comes from two places. I know that God gave the earth to us and it is our responsibility to be good stewards of this amazing gift. You wouldn't treat a beautiful diamond ring as trash, and how much more should we honor the earth? I also know that this is the same planet that sweet baby L will grow and inhabit. Often what is dangerous for the earth is also dangerous for her (and me!), and I want to keep her safe and leave this planet a better place.

Today I did two things I'd been meaning to do in honor of earth day:

Plastics are of concern to me. I have conversations with friends about how much more common infertility is now than it used to be. I don't just mean permanent fertility loss, but even simply all of the trouble we seem to have with getting and staying pregnant these days. With all of the information coming out recently about plastics leaching chemicals into our foods that effect our hormone levels, it really makes me start to consider the effect that the plastics we use have on our fertility and how we can reduce that threat. I don't think that I'll be able to completely eliminate plastic from my life anytime soon, but I did want to find a list that would decode the numbers (located inside the recycling arrows on the bottom of plastics) and tell me which plastics are safer and which are not safe at all. I found a list here that goes through each number explaining what they are made from and which are safer. I printed the list and wrote "BAD" or "SAFE" next to the different types of plastic and I plan on not purchasing the "BAD" plastics from now on.

I also am concerned about pesticides and chemicals in my food, and in the food I serve to sweet baby L. This is also coming from a place of concern about fertility, but as with plastics, I'm surely also concerned about other diseases and dangers. I'd love to buy all organic produce and foods, but in many cases these products are a lot more expensive than their conventional counterparts. I know that I've seen a list in the past outlining what things you really need to purchase as organics and what things you can let slide. Today I downloaded that list here. It has the top 12 "dirty" foods that you should always purchase organic, and then the top 12 "clean" foods that you can save your money on. Since my baby girl loves avocados and mangos and they are very expensive, I'm glad they fall on the "clean" side!

I printed both items (only page one of the plastics guide) and posted them on my fridge where I can reference them before I go shopping. Woohoo!

It's amazing the spark that a teacher can start! :o)

Weekly Update

This was an uneventful week. We still aren't certain about our housing situation but we are pretty optimistic.

The weather is getting to be so fantastic. Brad, L and I took a long walk on Friday night. It's was so good to get outside. Brad was sick part of last week and so a nice weekend where we got to spend time outside was just what we needed. We spent a lot of time starting to pack (with some travel and our finalization hearing coming up there won't be a lot of time) but we found some time for fun.

Sweet baby L is continuing to grow. She pulled up this week for the first time. She still can't get to sitting by herself, but when she's sitting she can start to get herself up. I think that we are really in for it. Sweet baby L is a girl with places to go and things to do. She's almost crawling, but her main method of getting around is still scooting around on that belly. She can get almost anywhere she wants to by dragging herself around. She is teaching me what I need to babyproof and getting into anything she can!



She was already sitting on her knees, before she got to that position. My goodness she's growing fast!



Whenever I have the camera out, she's after it. So in this photo, she's chewing her ducks and going after me at the same time.

She loves getting over to the toys she wants to play with.





She's still on the lookout for something else.

This morning gave me lots of opportunities for some good shots before L was even out of her pajamas. Most mornings I start with a cold diet coke. Sweet baby L got to mine this morning before I even opened it and followed it as it rolled across the floor until she finally cornered it and it couldn't roll anymore.





There is nothing like a nice cold can on those sore gums.

I think L was as shocked as I was when she realized she could open this drawer today. She LOVES electrical cords (of course!) and she hit the motherload with this drawer.





Like I said... she's teaching us what we need to baby proof.



Okay. I think this is so funny (above). James is our nearly constant companion when we play. Wherever we are, he wants to be too. He does not want to be caught, however. Sweet baby L will scoot over to him and try to grab him, and he'll move two feet away. She will follow, of course, and he'll move two more feet away. They'll just continue this game until he finally gets fed up and goes in the other room.



I love how proud of herself she is when she gets where she is going. TOO CUTE!!!

Just before she went back down for her nap today sweet baby L had a good time patting my knee and just laughing and laughing. It gave me a good chance to get some shots of those teeth.





She's got three now. If you look really closely, you can see the third just breaking through her top gums.

After a good round of patting my knee, it was back to getting into things. This time it was a magazine that caught her eye.





But only until she noticed that I was here and then she wanted the camera!

Our lives are sort of crazy with our housing situation up in the air. I caught Brad's cold yesterday so I'm feeling under the weather and poor L was sounding congested this evening too. I just hope that we all get over this pretty quickly. Mawmaw and Pawpaw will be here tomorrow and after that we've got some travels coming up so we'd like to be in tip top shape!

See you soon!

Weekly Update

It's been a busy week in our house. I always say that, don't I? Well... this week it's really true! We've been house hunting like crazy. Sweet baby L has been getting closer to crawling all the time, she moves her arms and legs, but can't really get the coordination down yet. She's also starting to try to get into a sitting position from her all fours position, and really just is getting really good at moving around in general. Sweet baby L has also been eating really well. I think her aversion to anything with chunks has passed, and she's eating almost anything we give her like a pro. This is great for me, because I was really worried that the poor child would never eat vegetables!

Because we've been working so hard on finding a new house, we've neglected taking many photos. I promise a better update next week! I am also hoping that we know more about our housing situation. I think we've got it under wraps, but I don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched!

We did get an amazing bit of news today, though. We have a date for our finalization hearing. Sweet baby L is obviously a part of our family, but this is the last step we have to take for her to legally be bound to us. It's largely symbolic, of course, but it's a huge deal to us. It's the final step on this small part of our journey. Woohoo!

We'll see you soon! (and again, I promise a better update next week!)

Weekly Update

We are having a CRAZY week at our house. On Wednesday of last week, by chance, we found out that our house is in foreclosure (we are currently renting) and that it is going up for auction soon. We need to be out of here as soon as possible, and we'd really like to buy this time, so we've been deep in the throws of house searching. Poor baby L has been such a trooper looking at tons of houses (and getting in and out of the carseat about 800 times a day). We'll keep you posted on our process.



















Sweet baby L has been getting really good at getting up on all fours and rocking! Her current mode of movement is to get up on all fours and then to rock and sort of jump her back legs forward (both legs moving at the same time). This basically knocks her forward and then she repeats the process. When she gets closer to whatever it is that she's wanting, she employs all her talents at reaching, rolling, rocking and scooting to get those last few inches done. It's really cute.



















Sweet baby L also had a big encounter with one of the cats this week. This is Kate, who normally avoids sweet baby L like the plague, but walked right up to her. L was really sweet, although there was some ear and whisker grabbing, but Kate really just tolerated everything. Maybe they'll be best buds!



















This is a terrible photo (fuzzy), but you can see sweet baby L's teeth! One is coming in more than the other one, but there they are!



















I love this photo of sweet baby L and her daddy both working on their computers. Hee hee! Computering is a pastime at our house, so I guess it's good that we're starting her early. She mostly likes chewing on the mouse and watching the lights.

Well, that's all we have today. We are just crazy around here! We're off to look at more houses later today and we'll let you know how it goes!