Grace is much needed these days

Today I was able to read some in Ezra. His humility and sorrow as he cried out to the Lord was inspiring to me. He knew God had and was still sparing them tremendously, and tore his clothes at the site of folks still disobeying the Lord.



I am so thankful for God's grace with us.



With that said, I have been needing a lot of grace when it comes to life these days. It has been a challenge to figure out life with a child. John is so much fun and adorable to boot, but he sure changed my life!



Last night I made up a list of 5 cleaning tasks that pretty much need to be done each week. As of now, Hubie has been doing a lot of the cleaning (thank you!). The idea is that I do one short task each day so that everything gets done on a weekly or monthly basis (I pick one room to dust once a week and vacuum the upstairs one week and downstairs the next, etc).

And I have one catch up day for the days I don't get to the task:) That was Hubie's idea. Smart man, I think.



We have thought a lot about how to heat our house with a baby. Since we live in an older row home with vacant homes on either side of us, our house is hard to heat. In the past we just kept the heat very low. We have a game plan now, but it is still on the colder side for all of us.

I was so proud to make my own leggings for John! They help so much since pants ride up all the time and it is cold on his legs. Progressive Pioneer noted on her blog that she cut the end off of her socks to make her own. I had a couple pairs with holes in the toes, they work perfectly! Just cut off the toe end.

Before my parents came to visit two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do some cooking. We made applesauce from the apples we picked. It turned out better this year, as I figured out I needed less water. I didn't even need sugar, it was good tasting. Perfect for baby food too; I froze some for next month when John starts to eat fruits!

I just got John down for his nap. It is taking some finagling to get him to nap these days. Ever since we decided not to rock him to sleep, he has been napping maybe 1 hr or so each day. He had been giving us trouble when we rocked him to sleep anyway, so I guess we just need to figure out his new schedule.

Hubie has been reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to me and it has some good tips on setting up a nap schedule.
Since John is 5 months now, apprently he needs to nap every 2 1/2- 3 hrs, two to three times a day. The author recommends really tiring the kid out before naps so he will sleep for at least an hour. I tried taking John outside for a walk before each nap yesterday and today. It sort of is working...although he fell asleep eating at 11:45am, so that messed up his afternoon nap. Nonetheless, he is sleeping now!!! I am going to keep up with this plan for a week, and hopefully that will do the trick.
PS, He is also sleeping through the night as of this past week, which is wonderful!

So, I'd better go throw the diapers in the wash since I have the chance. By the way, cloth diapers have been great! I am so glad we decided to use them.