Baby Update!

Makenna is getting bigger and bigger.  At her 2 month check up she was 12 pounds 4 ounces and 21 1/2 inches.  This put her in the 75th percentile! The highest Noah ever was...was the 25th percentile! lol.  She is still a pretty good baby.  I feel bad because she always seems to be gassy.  Hopefully as she gets older her stomach will get stronger and she will be able to handle milk better.  Her 2nd month was spent just getting bigger.  She did smile a lot more and laughed a couple of times.  At two months Daddy was the first to make her laugh.  There was something that happened ONCE and then never again, but was pretty cool.  My mom and brother Jeff were talking to her and they kept saying "Hiii,"  "Hii,"  to her....well sure enough if she did not say "Hiiii" right back.  I am not joking at two months old! lol  If I did not have them as witnesses I don't think anybody would have believed me.  Of course she has never even come close to doing something like that again, but I think she said her first word at two months old! lol She also started wanting to be standing on her feet a bit more.

At three months she started reaching for toys and trying to put toys and her blankets in her mouth. :)  She is always sucking on her hands and is already a slobber bucket just like her brother was.  She is a joy! Here's her three month shot and then one of her helping daddy with homework.

 Noah is doing good too.  He helps me with his sister by playing with her and talking to her.  He thinks in order to talk to Makenna he has to be as close to her face as possible though.  And he is often pulling on her arms and hands a bit rougher than I would like.  But she is a trooper and tries to get him back...take a look. She is already holding her own! :) ha ha

Noah is learning more every day and talking even more too.  The other day he told me, "Mom I love you so much."  It warmed my heart.  He has recently learned what the words man, woman, boy, and girl mean.  And he is such a trickster.  With a mischievous smile he says mom, you are a man and daddy's a woman.  Then he laughs because he knows he got it wrong. He jokes with things like that all of the time.  He is a sweet kid who loves to joke around.

It is soo hard trying to get pictures of them both looking at the camera and smiling.  Hopefully for Christmas cards we will be able to get at least one!  I love my children sooo much!

Tithing and Gratitude

As of late our family has been blessed tremendously!  Tommy and I have so much to be thankful for and we have a wonderful story of the blessings of tithing that happened to us recently.   I really feel that I should be home with my kiddos.  I want to be home with them and I feel that Heavenly Father wants me to be home with them too.  Especially from when they are babies until they go off to school.  I figure I won't ever get that time back and I want to enjoy it while it is here.  I can always go back to work in the future and definitely plan to when my youngest goes off to school!  However, and of course, the decision for me to stay home also meant that I would be decreasing our income from two people bringing in money to just one.  However, we made our decision and noticed that we were blessed in many ways and things worked out very well for us the first year or so that I've been home.  Tommy was making good commission and I was able to substitute teach here and there and I was tutoring.  This little extra bit helped and we were doing pretty well.  Well suddenly we had some extra expenses, Tommy was not making very good commission, and I had a baby and could not substitute teach.  So we were definitely stretched.  Well at the beginning of the year Tommy and I made the decision that we would pay a FULL and honest tithe.  We have always tried to be full tithe payers, but had missed tithing on a few pay checks here and there in the past.  It was mostly due to forgetfulness, but nevertheless. Well we resolved to not let that happen ever again.  So even on weeks where we forgot and had to double up the next pay check's tithing with the one before, we still made sure that we paid it.  It was hard at times, but we immediately began to see blessings...especially in those of having enough money for me to continue to stay home.  Things were going great from January to October.  However, in October we really started to struggle.  Money was getting tighter and tighter and I was stressing out.  I had even applied to work nights from home with U-Haul.  We had to continue to dip into our savings and our savings was slowly starting to deplete.  I was very worried and could not help, but feel freaked out.  Tommy and I were both praying that we would be okay.  One time I was feeling extra stressed and was trying hard not to grumble.  I got on my knees and as I was praying the lyrics to a church hymn came to my mind.  The hymn is Because I Have Been Given Much.  This part of the song came to mind during my prayer:

"Because I have been given much, I too must give.  Because of Thy great bounty Lord each day I live.  My glowing fire, my loaf of bread, my roof's safe shelter over head..." 

 I immediately felt repentant for grumbling.  I had food to eat, warm clothes, and a beautiful house to live in.  I resolved to put faith in God and to be thankful for the MANY things I had been given in my life.  Soon after that, Tommy got paid and even though it would completely WIPE out his pay check and then some, we still paid tithing.  I had to keep telling myself, "faith proceeds the miracle, faith proceeds the miracle." LOL  :)   Well a couple days after we paid it Tommy received a call from one of the higher ups of Chase Bank, where he works.  She said that she had an opening for a position and for some reason could just not get him out of her head.  She said that he had the particular skills that she needed and asked if he was interested.  This job would GREATLY increase our income.  Tommy was thrilled and said he was very interested.  A week later he was hired!  What a blessing!!!!  And we feel it is a particular blessing of paying a full tithe.  We will now have MORE than enough money.  I will just need to remember that other part to the hymn..."Because I have been given much, I TOO MUST GIVE!"  And that is definitely the plan.
Needless to say this Thanksgiving we had even more than usual to be thankful for.  We are so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who is watching over us.  He blesses us everyday in more ways then we can imagine and this is just one of those BIG HUGE blessings too.  We are indeed a thankful family!

Because I Have Been Given Much