An Unexpected Easter....

It's a little late for an Easter post. I realize this, but still wanted to share our experience this year. Things never go as planned, do they? That is a lesson I learn over and over and over it seems.

Luke 24:6 proclaims wonderful news, "He is not here; he is risen!" Isn't it great that we can celebrate the resurrection of Christ every day of the year and not just on Easter Sunday? Easter is a great day to remember, and we did -- just not in the ways we expected.

On Good Friday, Sadie Beth had a really rough day. She was abnormally fussy, which I thought she was either teething or just being a big stinker-butt. However, it continued and later that afternoon I realized that she had a swollen mass on the back of her head. To make a long story shorter, it turns out she had some sort of infection on the back of her head - the doctors think it was probably a staph infection. Poor thing had to go on 2 really strong antibiotics. It was a rough few days, and worrisome to these 2 first-time parents. We had to keep her pretty secluded for about a week...so no trip to Indy for our family Easter gathering for the Balzer's.

We had an unexpectedly great Easter at home with our little family. My mom brought us the DVD from Southeast's Easter service, so we had "church" in our PJs. Then, David's parents were so thoughtful to treat us to a beautiful Easter Stargazer Lily and a yummy dinner from the Honeybaked Ham store. I also made "Grandma Balzer's Company Potatoes," which turned out pretty yummy if I do say so myself. It was our first family holiday dinner at home with just us.

Here is Sadie Beth hanging out and observing in her high chair while I am working on dinner. Despite the fact that the infection caused her some pretty bad pain, she was in such sweet spirits...which made it much more bearable for all of us. My pictures are kindof fuzzy, but I'm not sure why.
Here's our "spread." Sadie Beth is usually asleep when we eat meals at home, so it was fun having her with us for our Easter dinner.
You might notice - the company potatoes recipe calls for Corn Flakes. The best deal at the store was for the Meijer brand box, which was ginormous. We decided to cover our other side dishes in cornflakes too! It made a nice topping.
Aren't our flowers pretty? Sadie Beth enjoyed dinner with the family.

Snuggle time with Daddy!
Sadie Beth has started to crawl backwards, but cries almost the whole time she does it - which I find sort of funny.
I'm not really sure, but she's funny...
Grammy stopped by when she got back from Indy with lots of Easter goodies from family and a special belated Christmas present from Sadie Beth's Great Uncle Joe. He made her a cradle, which was absolutely beautiful. She really liked it, and I did too!

Thanks Uncle Joe!!!!

Here's the boo-boo. This doesn't show how big the spot was. We had to keep it covered with a bandaid and give her baths with bleach in the water twice a day.
It was a busy day for the bug!! Now she's a sleepy bear.

Pre-7 Months

Here's a few pictures to catch us up to the Saturday before Easter. I will have to do a separate post from Easter on.
We are still adjusting to solid (pureed) foods. Some days Sadie Beth likes it more than others. She goes on "food-strikes" while she is teething. Her poor little mouth just hurts her so much that I guess she just doesn't feel like eating.
One day I was doing some "straightening" and picking up and I heard Sadie Beth laughing from the other room. I walked in to find out what was funny and this is what I saw:

She LOVES tags and zippers. She is fascinated by the zipper on the boppy - it entertains her endlessly.
I can't remember why I went into her room one night but I couldn't help but take a picture of this. David thought it was mean of me to have the flash, but it didn't even phase her.
I guess we will call this Sadie Beth's "very excited" face.
YAY!!! Spring weather is here. This was one of the first pretty days we had and it was great getting to go out for a walk. I think Sadie Beth really enjoys getting to be outside. We walk around and look at the flowers and trees.

Excuse the mess - usually it isn't this bad, I promise. I was trying to go through the 6-9mos hand-me-down box. Anyhow, Sadie Beth really doesn't roll from her back to her tummy. At least not often. However, she can bend in some pretty impressive ways.

One morning before her nap, Sadie Beth was playing in her crib while I was straightening up her room. She was so tired that she was falling asleep sitting up like this. The giant bear in the crib was to keep her from knocking her head against the back. We don't keep it in there all the time.

I put her on her tummy for a few minutes and this was one of the first times she actually was mobile on all fours....don't get me wrong, it was only a few inches, but hey she still moved.
Poor little bug had an infection on the back of her head about a month ago. It's gone now and the doctor said that it has healed up nicely. We have been given the all clear, but it gave us a bit of a scare. One of the things we had to do was soak the back of her head in water. We decided to try giving her a bath in the big tub to do this. She wasn't sure what was going on.

For awhile, any time we gave her a bath, her sole objective was to get the sink faucet in her mouth. It was pretty funny because she would try and do it even if the water was running. She was successful once, which resulted in a bit of sputtering.


More to come - hopefully soon!

I love it.

I found this extremely funny, especially since it pretty much describes my days since September 18, 2007. More to come soon, I promise...I have so many pictures ot put up now it's kindof overwhelming. Probably more than most of ya'll care to see, but the Oregon fam love it!