Ruthie Claire, Naked, & Sunscreen

Ruthie is 9 months old today. Wow!!

She is pretty much eating everything that is put in front of her.

Ruthie has started feeding herself.

Here's the little doll enjoying some raw milk cheese and bananas.


and her chubby hands....


I love all of my girls' mouths. They've all managed to come out with the same lips.

"Kramer girl lips."

Isn't this mouth just too much??


I had a loser mom moment a few days ago. You know, the kind of moment when you literally want to call CPS on yourself......

You've probably never had a moment like that.

A few days ago I was outside working in the yard.

Kaylyn and Laney Rae had came in the house to play while Ruthie was in her room taking a nap.

I had the monitor on in the house and about every 10 minutes or so I'd open the door to see if I could hear the baby. I did this numerous times.

About the last 3 times of peaking in, I had noticed that Laney Rae was awfully quiet. I decided to take off my rubber boots and go look for her in the house.

I walked in and towards the back of the house where the girls' bedrooms are. When I arrived to the hallway I heard the most adorable giggling from Laney Rae and Ruthie.

My first thought was,"How sweet. Their having a sweet sister moment."

But, my second thought was,"OH DEAR. Laney Rae alone with the baby is NEVER a good thing."

I turned the corner into Ruthie's room. My second thought came full circle at that moment.

Ruthie had been stripped NAKED and Laney Rae was sitting in her crib with her. They were both smiling at one another and having a big time!

"Laney Rae, why is Ruthie naked?" I asked my 2 year old calmly who was beaming with pride.

"Diaper and clothes wet momma," she explained back to me.

"Oh, her diaper leaked and you were trying to change her diaper?"

"Yeah," in her cave woman laugh. If you know Rae Rae, you know what I'm talking about.

At this point, I'm taking everything in and trying not to overreact or burst into laughter. After all, it was my fault.

I notice that Laney Rae had gotten out an old package of newborn diapers, opened them, and had them scattered in the crib with them.

I also noticed that Ruthie had a mohawk with some sort of goo textured and flowery fragrance in her hair.

Upon further investigation, I found out that Laney Rae had rubbed sunscreen all over Ruthie's head- Laney Rae had taken it upon herself to also put "lotion" on the baby while she was changing her.

At least it was "organic" sunscreen, right??

Laney Rae helped me give Ruthie a bath. I helped her finish changing Ruthie's diaper....wink, wink.

Ruthie {oNe mOntH} & motherhood

more pics below!!!!

Its hard to believe our precious one is ONE month old! I would have posted yesterday when she ACTUALLY was one month old, but blogger decided to adopt the speed of a tortoise.

Ruthie is still as sweet as ever. She is a typical 3rd child......all of my girls are dead on the "birth order" attributes.

Ruthie isn't really doing anything overly exciting. She is a wonderful sleeper and eater. I haven't heard her cry for more than a minute. I'm not joking! I think if I were to total the hours of her crying a day it wouldn't even come close to half an hour.

Going from two to three has been relatively smooth. The Lord blessed us with an easy baby and for that we are thankful! I do think its been harder adjusting to three instead of two because you run out of arms (two arms, two kids!) and you and your spouse are outnumbered by your children.

I've been doing lots of reading while I'm nursing. I got in this really bad habit of watching tv while I was nursing so I decided to change my ways and do something a little more productive.

One of the books I'm enjoying tremendously right now is "The Mission of Motherhood" by Sally Clarkson.

This book has been a sweet time of reflection and refocus being a new mommy again.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"As I have grown through the past eighteen years of motherhood, however, I've come to appreciate the importance of the many thousands of routine moments in a mother's life, for it is in these moments that real greatness tends to be taught and caught. It is certainly important to grasp the great calling of motherhood and respond to a vision for what a family can be. But It's the way I respond to my children in everyday moments that gives me the best chance of winning their hearts. If I have integrity and patience in the small moments of life that are so important to my children, and it I approach them with a servant's heart, then I have a far better chance of influencing them in the larger and more critical issues of life."

"Choosing to be a servant-mother means willingly giving up myself, my expectations, and my time to the task of mothering- and choosing to believe that doing so is the best use of my time at that moment. It means that, by faith, I have already made a decision to make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad of interruptions of daily life because I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them. Making this choice ahead of time means I will expect problems and needs to arise and be ready to deal with them in peace instead of impatience and resentment."

Some of you might have cringed a little or gasped out loud reading the words "servant-mother".

Being a servant is not a popular role to aspire to be in our culture today. After all, we have become a people where it's all about being served. Servants are nameless, faceless, unsuccessful nobodies in our culture's opinion as a whole.

Its hard to do a study on motherhood and not bring up the example of Christ. Christ, our perfect example, came to serve others even to the point of serving his disciples the night before his great sacrifice on the cross by ministering to their deepest needs. Jesus spoke words of wisdom, discipline, and encouragement over his disciples, but also modeled before them daily what this looked like lived out.

Jesus chose the life of a servant and sacrifice because of his deep love for us. He was eternally mindful that the decisions he made on this earth, affected those who knew him and would come to know him for all of eternity.

The cost was great- his life.

But, the rewards were even greater- the redemption of all of creation to bring us back to himself.

In Matthew 5:26 Jesus speaks about this very thing.

"It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant."

It's not enough for us to just tell our children to live right lives and expect them to obey us. We have to show them what a Christ-filled life looks like.

The more babies I have that fill up this house, the more I learn what sacrifice and serving others looks like. Its so easy to take on the role of being a "servant martyr" and have a pity party about the difficult and challenging road ahead that is most often monotonous and mundane. Or be sullen with selfishness that I'm not getting enough "me" time. I still go through this self-loathing pity party often when the days seem so long and I still haven't received a mail-order clone of myself to pitch in a helping hand around here. Don't you wish there were two of you some days???

But, when my perspective is eternal and my focus is on Christ's example, it makes me thankful that I've been blessed to be able to do this everyday of my life. It brings me to a deeper understanding of Jesus' sacrifice for me. Is vacuuming up squashed cheerios in the carpet for the 3rd time today really a big deal in the grand picture of sacrifice? No. But, for some reason it seems that way when my focus is off of Christ.

The goal isn't to raise up children who are moral and good people. The goal is to raise up disciples of Christ who love Him with every beat of their heart and breath on their lips.

And that takes sacrifice and faith in the ONE who has called you to do so.

Here are some of Ruthie's one month photos.

Sisters: A rare moment

After church today, Jason was in the kitchen cooking (how blessed am I???) and I was cleaning up around the house.

I heard Kaylyn say,"Mommy, come and see this!" in the most excited and sweet voice.

I came around the corner and saw this precious moment- a rare precious moment around here.

Kaylyn is our cuddly one and Laney Rae is our busy one.

Ever since Laney Rae took to walking, she hasn't really let Kaylyn hold her much although Kaylyn is constantly trying to squeeze in a few hugs here and there.

It was pretty special that Laney Rae came and laid her head right in her big sister's lap and Kaylyn knew that. Her face was beaming with delight.

The moment lasted all but a few minutes but it meant the world to Kaylyn. I'm one thankful momma. These two girls are so different, yet they each bless my life in words that I can't fully express right now.

In the midst of chaos and the crazy moments of life that come with the territory of having toddlers, I pray that I remember moments like this- a peaceful and precious moment.

KK giving Laney Rae kisses.

And then the tickling began!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I know it is a bit late in the day, but we've had an exciting mother's day out here on the farm.

We have 10 PIGLETS! This is our first litter of pigs. Lucy is a mama.

She started delivering yesterday evening while I was out collecting eggs and continued into the wee hours of the morning. My sister, brother-in-law, and niece, Ava, spent the night with us and were here to witness this too! We were up until 1:00 a.m. chatting and checking on piglet status. How fun!

Farmer Jason missed it all. Poor guy! I feel so bad when stuff like this happens. He has been looking forward for this day for weeks now. Dang! Farm drama likes to creep its head up when he is not around. I think they know that the less than adequate farmer (myself!) is filling in.

We also had another small batch of chicks hatch. This hen is beautiful!


Seriously, this was an exciting mother's day! I not only received an iPod nano, I now have a whole litter of piglets. They are the cutest! I was sure that pygmy goats were the cutest baby animals, but I might have to rethink that statement.

Laney Rae took 6 consecutive steps today. Any day now she will be walking. No exclamation point here. Sure, I'm excited for her. But, that means my baby will be vertical. And once they go vertical, its a fast and furious race.

I have nothing profound to say- not that I ever do anyways. I'm a simple gal.

I love being a farmer's wife!

I love being a mommy to two amazing girls!

I love farm life!

I feel so blessed today.

The Joys of Motherhood

Kaylyn has the most giving heart. She is always thinking of others and ways to make their day.

One of the joys of having this precious daughter of mine, is being a constant recipient of flowers during the spring and summer months. She would give them to me year around if flowers bloomed that long.

Pictured above are bluebonnets that Kaylyn blessed me with a few days ago. We know you aren't supposed to pick these (won't you get arrested or something?), but we have fields of them on our land. Picking a few 'never hurt nobody'!

I was reminded of what a blessing Kaylyn is in our lives after a not so joyful moment with her the other day at our local Wal-Mart. I was less than pleasant for my children to be around for about the 10 minutes it took us to get home in order to prove the point of my disapproval in what she had done.

As I huffed and puffed up the steps and into our house after a defeated trip to Wal-Mart, the first thing my eyes locked with were my fragrant filled bluebonnets.

My heart sank and I went to Kaylyn to apologize for being so selfish in my anger.

I'm reading a fantastic book that I recommend all wives, mothers, and single women read. It is called Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother by Carolyn Mahaney (love this lady).

I'll leave you with a quote from the book.

I seldom feel like much of an adventurer- standing in the kitchen, pouring cereal into bowls, refilling them, handing out paper towels when the inevitable cry comes: "Uh oh, I spilled." But sometimes at night the thought will strike me: There are three small people here, breathing sweetly in their beds, whose lives are for the moment in our hands. I might as well be at the controls of a moon shot, the mission is so grave and vast.

God's word reminds us when we feel so overwhelmed in these moments and when it seems as though the task at hand is too great.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Cor. 12:9