Baby Dedication Celebration

Here's a picture of my color coordinated kids for the baby dedication picture we got taken tonight. Tomorrow morning we will be dedicating Autumn at church. It's making a public dedication that we as parents will take care of all of Autumn's needs but mainly her spiritual needs and raise her to know God and hopefully one day she will accept Christ as her Saviour as well. At our church in order to participate in baby dedication you take a class explaining what it means and then the night before dedication is a celebration time for the families. This celebration to put together by a wonderful group of volunteers who serve wonderful desserts and give you a night of reflection time as a parent. A wonderful and talented singer sang a few songs...a few people talked...and then they passed out Bibles and devotionals for the babies. It's just a great time for the parents to be loved on and shown they have an awesome church family who is there to help walk them through this crazy thing called parenting. ;) My favorite part is afterwards when a pastor or elder of the church prays over your family. We asked the senior pastor of our church to pray over us tonight. It meant a lot to us to have him do it because for one our church is so large we actually have never introduced ourselves to him after all these years and I just felt the need to hear his prayers this evening over Autumn. I also met a lady who reads my blogs. It's weird to know strangers read my thoughts and know me so well and I don't know them at all but it also makes me so happy to meet people who read my blog because it shows me so many other people out there care about our little girl and how she is doing. So, if you read my blog and I do not know you please feel free to introduce yourself to me because I would love to get to know you as well.

We made plans after church tomorrow to go our to eat to celebrate and take Autumn to her first restuarant. When I told Madison she was a little hesitant because she hates when people stare at us. I told her that I hate it as well but that it's just something we have to get use to. I told her she would stare too if she saw a baby with a trach and tubes connecting the baby to a machine..it's just normal to be curious. She said she use to stare at people but now she is comfortable with seeing people that have medical devices or wheelchairs. I told her that God is also using Autumn to teach her and Gage about compassion and how even though people may need a wheelchair or medical devices that they are just like the rest of us. I also love when I get the opportunity to tell other kids about Autumn because I hope it makes them more comfortable around other children with disablities. When kids understand they are so much more accepting.

Miss Autumn has been doing pretty good lately. She has decided to not desat anymore on the toddler meals and is eating them up now. I think she just had to get use to the texture. She LOVES tablefoods and even though she does not have teeth she will eat spaghetti, mac & cheese, carrots, apples, green beans, baked beans, corn, peas, and the list goes on. Although the more table food she eats the less baby food she wants and she is starting to get picky about some foods. She has decided she does not like pears or broccoli and only likes mashed potatoes when mixed into something else. She also has started this thing that cracks us up. When she gets excited she squeezes her fists really tight and tightens are body up and pressing her lips together really tight. It looks hilarous!! The week though she also started something I don't like. She's been throwing up everynight after her night feeding. My guess was that is was from her acid reflux so I decided to break up her dose and give her 1/2 in the am and 1/2 in the pm instead of it all in the am. Well, didn't work tonight. So, not sure if that is it or not...James thinks it's because the formula is going in too quickly but we have fed her the same way everynight for months now so I'm not buying that theory. I will try though to feed her slower tomorrow night and see. She occasionally will vomit her morning feed but usually it's the mornings my day nurse is here and we think it may be from moving too much right after her feeds so she's been letting her sit a little longer and so far I think it may be working. I think Autumn just wants to always give me something to think about and ponder. Okay, way too long post and I gotta get to bed for Autumn's big day tomorrow.