Blog Archive

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Colorado Harms came to town

We were thrilled to host Matt's youngest brother and his wife this weekend. We had a great time showing them around town, despite the crazy thunder storms including tons of lightning and hail. We are SO thankful that they came to visit and can't wait to see them again soon. Phil and Darbi, we miss you already!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Good, Good Days

Sister Snuggle Time


Elizabeth helps Ruby with her "Tummy Time"


Row, Row, Row your boat


She's an Eating Machine!


Ruby loves the backyard swing

What a week we've had! For the past few days I've been singing that song from Fiddler on the Roof: "Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles" There's a line that goes:

And like He did so long ago in Jericho
God just made the wall fall down


That is the perfect summation of how we feel: The wall fell down this week. Elizabeth is eating. Really eating. Eating purees, tolerating textures that have given her trouble in the past, allowing me to feed her a variety of foods and is mostly okay with it! Talk about miracles...It feels like this is the one we've been praying for.

I had a dream last Tuesday. In it, Elizabeth took a bite from a sandwich and ate it. I was amazed and kept waiting for her to throw up or gag at least. Instead, she opened her mouth and showed me how she could move her tongue to push the food from side to side, chew and swallow....amazing. I woke up feeling so good. I didn't realize it was a shadow of things to come. Tuesday afternoon, our Occupational Therapist, Mary, pushed Elizabeth a bit during lunch, and got her to explore some textures, which she handled better than she had last week. This gave me encouragement to try a few new things with her later in the week. Then Thursday at a particularly stressful ENT appointment, Elizabeth's G-Tube came out...completely out of her belly. It's a long story, but I actually had the fleeting thought, (before I replaced it with a new one) "well, maybe she just needs to learn how to eat!" It's about time.

In the last two days, she's eaten 4 out of 6 meals ENTIRELY by mouth...pureed bananas, carrots, applesauce, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, yogurt, avocado...I keep waiting to wake up! Thank you to those of you who have been praying faithfully that she would learn to eat. We'll be on to chewing before long!

As a result of the good news from Elizabeth's endoscopy, we'll be heading out to California in July. We'll spend some much needed time with family, get a little rest, visit our beloved church, ALCF, and hopefully see many of you! We're still in the planning stages, but hope to have a day &/or evening when we can be in one spot so folks can drop by for a visit. If you're in town, we'll keep you posted!

In other news, Ruby's growing like a weed. She'll be 6 months old on Sunday! She weighs close to 19lbs, has two teeth and is LOVING solid foods. The girls are interacting more & more. Elizabeth is a great big sister and a super helper around the house.

While Matt's parents were here two weekends ago, we were teaching Ruby one of our favorite songs, "Running over". As a result, Elizabeth has been singing it at the top of her lungs for days now. It's such a good reminder.

Our cups are full and running over indeed.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

First Foods

Clearly Ruby likes eating.

When I slowed down, she tried to eat her bib, the chair and finally decided to try to feed herself!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Harms Girls' Lunch Date

I'll post a more thorough update soon, but for now, enjoy this video!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Grandma & Grandpa came for a visit!

Grandma & Grandpa Harms are here to visit for Mother's Day and we're having a grand time. Yesterday, a trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens provided more fun and more photo ops. The matching sweaters were lovingly knit by Mary Hughey, the sweet Aunt of our honorary "Auntie Abby." Thanks Aunt Mary!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Cousin Camp

This week, we've been thrilled to host our nieces Eiley & Taliah for "Cousin Camp." My sister, Svea came along too :) ...and it's been quite a ride! Here are some pics from the first 5 days. I'll keep adding photos to this album for the rest of the week. We'll be so sad to see them go on Sunday. It's been a little slice of heaven.

Welcome Grayson Paul Harms!

After 9 long months of waiting (surely longer for Tia than for us) we have a nephew! He's a cutie pie and we can't wait to snuggle him. Congrats Dan and Tia!