New Year News

  Can you believe it's 2011?! It seems like the last few months of 2010 flew by, especially with Gideon's arrival and all of our visitors. To ring in the new year, our team hosted a game night at the Forum. Matt, Gideon and I only lasted until around 10:30 before we had to head home. We ended up welcoming the new year feeding Gideon and watching three separate fireworks shows from our living room windows. Here are Allie and I with Gideon at the Forum that night.

For those of you who haven't heard about our baby drama lately, here's a little recap: 

When we left the hospital with Gideon over a month ago, the doctor made us rent this scale to keep track of his weight. At that point, we were so ready to be back at home, we'd agree to do anything they asked so that we could leave. At the beginning, we had to weigh Gideon once a day. When we went back to the doctor for his one month checkup, the doctor wasn't satisfied with his weight and told us to weigh him before and after every feeding, noting exactly how much he'd eaten from me, how much formula he'd eaten, how much he spit up, etc. Talk about STRESS! She also advised us to give him formula with every feeding! We were totally against this, but thought we'd try it. Well, it only lasted about 48 hours before we decided we couldn't live like that. We spoke with the lactation consultant,  explaining to her that we would like to cut out formula and the bottle cold turkey, as well as get rid of the scale. She completely agreed, and we've been scale free for a week! I cannot tell you what a huge relief it is not having to worry about every gram he gains or loses. I go to a baby club at our doctor's office once a week now to make sure he's gaining like he should be. This week he weighed 3.68 kilograms (8.11 lbs.) and was 57 cm (22 inches)!

Here's the dreaded scale...Good riddance! 

Matt has been reading Bible stories to Gideon every morning while I'm getting ready. It's absolutely adorable. Some friends gave us The Jesus Storybook Bible for Christmas and we love it! It's so neat to watch Gideon look at the pictures! 

Here they are one morning...

Gideon's arrival has reminded us how blessed we are to have such amazing friends and family around the world. So many of you were extremely generous, sending gifts for Gideon with our visitors. We can't tell you how much you all mean to us! 

I had to include a pic of Gideon in his newest outfit! Garrett and Anna (my brother-in-law and his wife) sent this outfit, along with several others a few days ago and they are absolutely adorable on him!

One of the coolest things Matt and I received this holiday season was a gift card to Living Water International from Kasey and Landon (other brother-in-law and his girlfriend). This organization shows God's love by providing clean water to impoverished areas all over the world. This gift card allowed us to choose which area we'd like to donate to. Check out www.water.cc/redeem to see the choices and read more about the cause. We chose the region of Sierra Leone after viewing the video on infant mortality there.  (I'll try to figure out how to get the video on here for you guys.)

Have a great week!