Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope your day is full of family, friends, and God's joy as you reflect on all of your blessings!

Man Cub: 4 Months

Precious Boy,

Our joy increases daily because of the goodness the Lord shows us through you.  We already see God using you to show people His love, and we rejoice greatly each day because of this.  Your smiles, giggles, and coos have earned you a Nyanja nickname of Chemwemwe, and you are beginning to learn it means you!  This month has been an adjustment on all of us as I've gone back to work, but you adore staying home with Daddy.  The bond you two have is incredible, and I am so thankful.  You have one more month of Daddy and your Mama taking care of you before you'll start going to Mrs. Kim's house.  We are so grateful for how God is providing for us even when we don't like our circumstances.  

We love you more each day!

Sleeping:

Two weeks ago you began sleeping through the night.  It's amazing!  Now you go to sleep between 7:30-8:00 at night and sleep until 7:30 or 8:00 the next morning.  I still have to get up to pump in the night sometimes, but that's ok.  You pretty much fall right to sleep without any help, even at nap time.  We do still let you take your short cat naps in the swing.  During the day, you take one 1.5-2 hour nap morning and afternoon and one 30-45 minute nap morning and afternoon.  

Eating:

You love to eat!  About the only time we see you fussy is right before meal time.  You eat almost exactly every 3 hours during the day.  You nurse with me before I go to work if you're awake.  If not you get three pumped bottles during the day, and then we get to nurse twice more before you go to sleep for the night.  Based on what I can pump at a time, you're getting between 25-30 ounces.  We tried giving you larger bottles (5-5.5 ounces), and you started spitting up, so we know your little tummy just can't take more than that.  Mommy is a bit on the prideful side that you are exclusively breast fed.  Your Mama did it with your uncle and me, and I was not about to be outdone!  Lucky for both of us, you've had no issues despite Mommy getting a bout of thrush and mastitis this month.  We pressed on and were no worse for the wear.

 

Tricks/Activities/Accomplishments

You now growl at us.  Lovely.  Actually, it's honestly pretty cute, and we have no idea how you learned that.  You just do it!  You now roll from your belly to your back and from your back to your belly.  You can scootch yourself just about anywhere you really want to be, though mostly you use your scootching skills to turn in circles.  You can hold your own bottle.  You love sucking your pointer and middle fingers together-either hand!  Your exer-saucer is your new favorite hang out.  Anything that goes in your hands now goes in your mouth; your hand-eye coordination is excellent.  You will 'sing' to us, and you love to talk to us too.  Bouncing and standing are still favorites of yours.  You can now track where sounds are coming from and look around to find them.

Likes:

Bath time, baths with Mommy, puppy kisses and cuddles, being outside, music, being sung to, your swing, the Bumpo, the excer-saucer, time on your playmat, when your grandparents and great-grandparents sing and talk to you, laughing, cooing, drooling, squealing, being flown around like Super Man, being tossed in the air, the Bjorn, eating, sleeping, and grabbing anything you can reach

Dislikes:

Being tired, hungry, or dirty.  That's about it!

Four Month Stats:

Weight: 11 pounds, 12 ounces

Length:  24.25 inches

Eating: nursing/breast milk bottles ~7:30 am, 10:30 am, 1:30 pm, 4:30 pm, 7:30 pm

Bedtime: between 7:30 and 8:00

Awake: sometime between 7:30-8:00

Naps: usually 9:00, 11:30, 2:00, and 5:00

Diapers: Size 1

Clothes: 0-3 month and 3 month onesies; size 3 months and some 3-6 months pants and rompers because you're so long!

Five on Friday

This week has had days where I've had to go 21 hours without seeing my kid...all because he's decided to start sleeping through the night.  Sigh.  I cannot wait to be able to resign.  Hopefully just a few more months.  In the mean time, there have been some sweet moments this week to keep me going between Man Cub cuddles!

ONE:  The hubby's AirStone fireplace surprise was so much fun!  It was cold enough earlier this week to even enjoy a nice fire and stare at Isaac's handiwork.  I'm still amazed at how something so simple completely changed the feel of our living room.  What a treat!

TWO: Yesterday was my school's Thanksgiving Feast.  Not only do we have some of the finest educators around, be we are apparently some of the finest cooks as well.  We ate until we declared nap time, but really we had to go back to teaching.  Ah, well, after today, we can all nap for a week!  :)  I made cranberry casserole and received rave reviews.

THREE: This sweet Man Cub is just shy of 4 months and still hasn't hit 12 pounds, but he thinks he's all grown up.  He loves turning around in the exersaucer and holding his own bottle.  If I pump into a big bottle instead of the little ones, he can hold those too.  What a mess of cuteness!

FOUR: With the cooler weather this week, I busted out my favorite winter drink: chocolate chai.  I like both Big Train Chai Chocolate Chai and   Tazo Chocolate Chai equally, but both have just a bit of a different spice to them.  So yummy!

FIVE: The best news of the week came Wednesday when Kaitlin sent me a quick text to just say "GOING HOME!".  After just over 3 weeks in the hospital for the Conqueror's first round of chemo, Team Ozinga's most favorite 2 year old is finally home with all of his family together. He should get to stay there through Thanksgiving before round 2 begins. God has taught us so much as we've prayed fervently for the Conqueror and his family, and watching God had work has kept us in awe of His power, even on the really hard days for them.  This is one happy kiddo, can't you tell?!

Linking up with:

WFMW: AirStone

When we bought our home 2 1/2 years ago, many parts of it had been updated.  One part that hadn't been touched was the 1996 black marble around the fireplace.  While it's not my favorite, I could certainly live with it.  What I couldn't live with now that we have Man Cub was the tempered glass pieces that the previous owners thought looked better than gas logs.  Sure, the glass reflected the flames nicely, but with a baby in the house, those little pieces were just waiting to be swallowed and scattered everywhere.

On Thursday, Isaac decided to give me a little surprise.  He knew I wanted the glass gone, but he decided to try out AirStone to cover up the glass marble.  AirStone is made of 80% recycled materials (woohoo!) and weighs 75% less than real stone. That means it just takes their AirStone adhesive to apply it to a wall.  Super simple! It looks like real stone though, and we'd both eyed it a time or two while browsing through Lowes.  Isaac chose the Autumn Mountain color scheme to match our paint and tile.  The best part about all of this is that it's super, super cheap!

When I got home from work, Isaac was nearly done with the project.  Honestly, he probably could have knocked it out in half a day, but he had a baby and 2 dogs to care for too, so I'll give him some slack.  :)  By dinner, it was finished and drying.  After 2 days, we took off the wood supports for the middle section, and all was dry and stuck tight.

While it wasn't a necessity, it was an awesome surprise and a super affordable way to spruce up our living room.  Thanks, Babe!

Linking up with Kristen.

Operation Christmas Child 2014

Saturday was cold and dreary, the perfect weather for spreading some Christmas cheer!  Isaac, Man Cub, and I had 12 teens from our Sunday School class and one brave mom join us to pack up 14 shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. 

We met at our house, loaded up three vehicles, and headed out to the store to find goodies for the boxes.  The majority of the kids had worked extra to earn the money for their gifts, which made shopping that much more meaningful.  I loved wandering the aisles listening to them talk about finding just the perfect cuddle friend, school supplies, and toiletries for their boxes.  I was tickled hearing them talk about how they found the coolest thing to put in the box and how they knew their kid would just love it.  We were so excited to see them so excited about giving and going it joyously.

Once back at our house, we took a break to eat homemade frito pie, and then the wrapping began.  The kids learned that packing boxes is much like putting together a puzzles.  With a little perseverance and a bit of help, we got all of their treasures packed away.  We prayed over the boxes that the Lord will use them to share His great love with children all over the world.  Isaac will take them to a collection point this week.

Man Cub loved all the extra lovin', and I know the pups did too.  This is the kind of joy and generosity I want Man Cub growing up finding purpose in.  He's got some great role models in these kids to look up to!

Want to join the fun?  There's still plenty of time to pack a box.  You can find a collection point near you here. The last day to drop off boxes is November 24th.

We're Alive!

There's nothing like your niece being convinced your dead to get you to start blogging again.  Oops!  Hi, Tina!

I took a social media fast for a week to spend more time in prayer and sleeping.  When that week was over, I just kept it going without thinking much about it.  Going back to work has been so hard on me, emotionally and physically.  Three months is much too soon, but that's another story.  Anyway, the blog was put on the back burner for awhile so I could have more family time.  I still don't know how much I'll blog, but there are things burning in my heart, so you know that means posts will come.

In the mean time, here's Man Cub from last night's walk.  If we're in the 40s for highs in November, I'm scared to think what January and February will be like in southeast Texas!