9 months!

today my baby girl is 3/4 of a year old. 9 months has flown! it is so hard to believe that after her 9 month check up on friday, the next time we will see dr. fraser is at her ONE YEAR check up!

bella joy holding her moose.
so big!

standing in her cradle :)

at 9 months, our girl is doing new things each day. she never sits still! she is always crawling somewhere or pulling up on something. she says more sounds each day. she even knows how to click her tongue! it is the sweetest thing! she still loves her bath time more than anything. her favorite toys are her push toy, ball popper, little people nativity, and a little phone that her auntie amanda gave her as an early Christmas present. she gets super excited when you show her a picture of her self and when puppies are around. when i sign eat to her, she gets excited and smacks her lips! it really is the most amazing thing to watch her develop.

on saturday, bella's awesome "auntie" jj came to hang with her for the night while adam and i went to his work Christmas party (where we won a 32 in flat screen tv!!). she had had a rough nap day so i rocked her for a while and sang to her while she napped in my arms. as i sat and sang hymns with my girl, tears came to my eyes. i wish i could have bottled that moment up! as i sang songs of thankfulness to my awesome God, i prayed that bella joy would know Jesus and follow hard after Him. i think that 30 minutes is probably (and may always be) in my top 3 favorite moments of motherhood.

a lot has happened in our lives over the past few weeks. we grieved with some of our dearest friends as they said goodbye to their sweet baby girl. we had water issues. we lost power for 3 hours. bella joy enjoyed her first snow. and we got stranded in that same snow. God has used each of these things to show me that He is indeed in control and that in all things i must trust Him. but more on that later.

happy 9 months bella joy! we love you, more than you'll ever know!

how God showed up

tonight i spent the evening with some other sweet momma's at our mops cookie swap. we ate cookies, chatted, and listened to the sweetest Christmas story. afterward, i took my baby-less time and headed to do our two-week grocery trip. i made it home just before 10 and when i came in, adam said "something is up with our water, it isn't clear". i immediately asked why he didn't call me since i had just been at the grocery, where i could have gotten some bottled water to make bella joy's bottles until our water is normal. adam and i debated about what to do. should i go back into town, or should we just wait til morning and call the water company. i thought that i would text my sweet friend lisa who lives less than a mile away to see if she was still up, assuming that she wouldn't be since it was about 1030 by this point. well, she called me a few minutes later and said "you will never believe this! i usually go to bed at 9 or 930 but i was up late shopping with some friends and just pulled into the driveway. i'm on my way to your house now!" a few minutes later, she pulled into our driveway. i went to the dining room to get my jacket and noticed that i could see her head lights in the garage. i was about to go to bed with the garage door opened! so i went to the door, nearly in tears, and received a wonderful gift of a nearly full case of bottled water for my baby girl.

God knew that our water was cloudy. He knew adam wouldn't call me to buy any. He knew i left the garage door opened by accident. He knew lisa had plenty of bottled water. He knew she was up later than usual. He knew she would pulled into my driveway which would show me that my garage door was still opened. God works things out. all the time, He is good.

so tonight, i am going to bed with clean water for my baby girl and closed garage door. and a thankful thankful heart.