advent

Growing up we always had a felt advent calendar to count down until Christmas.  I spent a lot of time looking online for one, but they all looked pretty cheesy.  My mom didn't have ours any more so I decided to make one for Mike & Hudson as my Christmas present to them. 
I used several sites to get ideas, but Homemade By Jill was the most helpful.  Instead of just doing ornaments to count down, I wanted to make it more meaningful so I tied it in with a Jesse Tree Devotional from Ann Voskamp.  I loved how it turned out.  I'm so excited to make this a part of our Christmas traditions.

food

So Hudson is supposed to eating food now.  Or at least that's what our families all think.  We've decided to do things a little bit different than the usual rice cereal and purees.  We've waited until he is 6 1/2 months old and are going to follow Baby-led weaning.  Since I had never heard of this, I wanted to read a book about it.
Baby-led Weaning was an excellent resource and really explained the principles well.  I think the best way to describe it is a lase-fair approach to feeding your baby.  Pretty much, if he eats, great and if he doesn't, no big deal.  We will offer him lots of different foods that he can pick up and gnaw on and eventually he'll learn how to eat.
I'm excited to try this because it doesn't seem very stressful.  The book said that at the beginning if they go a few days without eat, it's not a big deal because it's really just play and exploration at first.  I also think that it's going to make Mike & I look at what we're eating because we're supposed to give Hudson the same stuff we're having for dinner.
I think my favorite part of the book was the part about giving your baby meat.  The authors said that it's great to give your baby a chicken bone to gnaw on or a piece of red meat to suck on because they will get a lot of nutrients from the juices (blood!).  I got these crazy pictures of Hudson sitting at the table with a turkey leg in his hand just munching away.

memory

I didn't do so well with memory monday.  Since it's a new year, I'm going to try something new.  Beth Moore has a Siesta Scripture Memory Team and I'm going to join.  We memorize two verses a month, which seems a lot more manageable.  I will be posting a comment on her blog and here on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Here's the first verse I'm going to memorize:

You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.  Psalm 65:11 NLT

I'm hoping that this verse will set the tone for 2011.  I want to recognize God's blessings, even in the hard times.