Thankful....... November 18th

Raleigh and I just purchased our last box of baby formula. 

 We have purchased 1 of these boxes to the tune of $43.99 every other Wednesday since August 19, 2009.  Not to mention the random run to Walmart in the middle of the night in extreme emergencies cans.  All told, we have spent  $4, 763. 96 on our little babies for the first year of their lives.

I am always a bit of a paranoid freak when they are little, little babies because I have no milk supply to offer them.  And if we were to have a natural disaster or a crisis where we couldn't get to the store for some reason, it would be awful to have nothing for them to eat, so I always insisted that we had a bit of a stock pile and I would panic if we were down to one can.

It is a really good feeling to know that we can give them milk and real food and we are no longer slaves to formula and it's ridiculous cost.

Then..... on the other hand, I am so sad thinking that this past year has ZIPPED by in a flash and that our babies are no longer babies.

My little boy stands next to the couch and pushes himself away from it and balances for 5 to 10 seconds.  You can see the concentration in his face.  He knows exactly what he is doing and he practices all the time.  He is the best baby I have ever known.  He is happy all the time.  He entertains himself, happily and any time anyone gives him the slightest attention he flashes the biggest grin... sometimes closing his eyes as tight as they can close and exposing his 5 teeth that he has worked so hard cutting.

He has had a rough couple of weeks in the night because of his painful teeth and he wakes up and all he wants to do is cuddle.  So I lay him on my stomach and he snuggles in and lays perfectly still and I can feel him breathing. It is the greatest feeling and I could do it all night long, every single night.

When I think of how many health scare possibilities we could have had with how sick he was at the beginning of his life, I am beyond grateful that we have not had one sick day and he has beautiful, healthy lungs that sound so lovely when he breathes.

When I think that we went from this....

To this......

 

 

He is the exclamation point on our family.  We love him with all of our hearts and we are so glad that he chose to come to our family.

It's November 18th...............  and I am Thankful for Ryker and for no more formula expenses.