Thankful day 4&5

Day 4- ice cream! I know this is so shallow, but i love ice cream...and so does my dad. so we are enjoying having a partner in crime to indulge in some mid day icream with! Love u dad! Day 5- new life The past few weeks two of my baylor friends announced that they were pregnant, and both of these babies are miracles! One mom has a genetic condition and was told that she had a very small chance of getting pregnant, she is having her second this summer! The other is a dear friend who struggled with infertility and underwent several rounds of fertility treatments... She is due in early june! It is so clear in scripture that God is the author of life, just check these out: Isaiah 46: 3-4 "...and you whom i have upheld since your birth, and have carried you since you were born. Even to your old age and grey hairs i am He, i am He who will sustain you. I have made you and i will carry you; i will sustain you and i will rescue you. Job 10:10 "you guided my conception and formed me in the womb." I am so thankful for his hand on these dear friends and giving them new lives! We had a wonderful thanksgiving with complete with a turkey bowl, a turkey feast and 4 generations of Johnson/Fields/Vogelaars! Happy black friday! We arent going anywhere near any retail stores today! Love, The Vogs

Thankful day 2&3

So, I missed a day... does traveling to FL on a 6:15am flight with a 15 month old buy me any grace?

Day 2- 6am flights!
Actually, If we didn't have to wake up at 4am to catch our flight, I would take a 6am flight every time! They had 15 extra seats on our flight, which means that MK got her own seat! She slept the whole flight and did great! Thank you Lord for that tiny blessing that started our long day of traveling off well.

Day 3- the Fields Family...get ready for some awesome old pics!

Fields girls Christmas pictures 2007.

Fields girls in Vero Beach, FL summer of 1996

3 generations of Fields girls at Baylor Homecoming 2010

My mom and dad's christmas card picture 2010

We are here in Vero Beach visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. I have the best parents in the world! I am so thankful that God allowed me to be born into the Fields Family! This is the first time in 3 years of marriage that Mike and I have been in Florida without my sisters, and although we are loving the one on one time with Mom and Dad, I miss my sisters! I can't wait to see them in a couple weeks for our California christmas/new years celebration! 

Today we are in thanksgiving meal preparation mode, so i've gotta go make myself useful!

What are you thankful for today? Thank the Giver of every good thing today for the blessings in your life. Reflect on James 1:17 this Thanksgiving holiday!

Love,

Katy

Thankful- Day 1

This week, I am reflecting on what I am thankful for... each day I will post something new!

Today, I am thankful for my sweet family. I have the best husband and the cutest, sweetest, most kissable baby girl in the whole world! Here is a sneak peak of our 2011 Christmas card pics to show off these blessings in my life!


Pics taken at our church, Watermark.... LOVE this white stone!



M&M, I love you more than life! I thank God for you every day.

Love,
Katy/Mama

He is faithful!

Yesterday in church, my dear friend Randi ministered to me in a way that I don't think she even knows. I was sitting next to her and her husband and listening to her sing during worship made me cry. You see, Randi was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of October, and is starting on the incredibly long and painful journey of fighting her cancer. She and her husband from the very beginning have remained firm in their faith. You can check out their incredible journey at their blog : treasuresinheaven.blogspot.com 

So, back to Sunday. We were singing Matt Redmon's song "Never Once"... listen to it here : 

For me to sing "You are faithful" to my savior was an easy overflow of my heart. He has been so faithful to me. He is faithful to forgive my sins, to provide for our family, to bring Mike and Maddie into my life, to be my comforter and protector. But, would I be singing with the joy and passion that Randi sang if I had breast cancer? If my world as I knew it was crashing down, would I sing "You are faithful God?" Do I trust the Lord enough? Randi does, and it is such a beautiful thing to witness. She knows, like the song says, that the Lord is with her, He never leaves her and He is her source of joy, hope and peace. I hope you know Him and can experience that peace whenever your life is turned upside down. 

On a less serious note, I'll leave you with a few pictures of my sweet angel that we took this weekend...we had a fun filled weekend with Maddie's bff Mckinley (Randi's daughter). We watched Mckinley while the Widemans had a night on the town in Ft. Worth and we had such a blast with the "twins" as we so lovingly call them. It was a great training opportunity for Maddie, she wasn't doing great a sharing her toys and liked to take Mckinley's milk from her. 

The twins during our photoshoot in the nature preserve by our house!

My joyful girl! 

Hope y'all have a wonderful week...can you believe Thanksgiving is next week? I can't! I am so excited to spend the holiday with my parents again this year and to remember every blessing the Lord has given me and to give Him thanks! 

Love y'all!

Katy

Our sick little honey bee

What would we do without our froggie humidifier and Zarbee's honey cough medicine?

I was going to do a post on Halloween, but we are sick in our house today. Silly Croup! Any suggestions for how to keep your little one's immune system healthy this time of year? She's getting her flu shot in a couple weeks, so I am hoping that helps. My precious MK has been sick every week for the past month with something new (stomach bug, hand foot mouth, croup). We are desperate for a healthy week around here! Gotta remember: it's just a season, I have to be thankful that I have a precious babe to nurse back to health and MK is extra cuddly when she's sick so I've gotta take advantage of this!

Here is our feeble attempt at a Halloween post: I will show you a picture of my adorable little honey bee. She LOVED trick or treating, loved saying "thank you" to everyone who gave her candy...I have such a polite little one! She didn't get to eat any candy (which didn't go over too well with her), but she did get some candy corn when we got home... I think I may have created a candy corn monster! :)

Today, we are going to cuddle on the couch, drink lots of fluids and enjoy the smell of homemade chicken soup on the stove!

Nothing better for the sickies than homemade chicken soup!

Hope you are staying healthy!

The Vogs

Fuzzibunz update!

So, as promised, here is our Fuzzibunz update! We have been using cloth diapers for 3 months now, and I will say that it has been an adjustment. It was a steep learning curve, but we are getting the hang of things! All I can say, is I wish we would have done this sooner! 

We have added four new pocket diapers to our collection- Go Green pocket diapers. The biggest draw to trying these out was their price, they were $9 each, much cheaper than Fuzzibunz! And, they came in cute patterns and fuzzy fabrics. They are a very basic pocket diaper, snaps for the legs instead of elastic like the Fuzzibunz, but over all I have been very pleased with them! Nothing can compare to our Fuzzibunz, but they work and have been a great asset to our CD stock! 

Our cloth diaper supplies!

We have gotten our CDing system down pretty well. You can see from the picture how we’ve set up her diapers in her room. Her changing mat is on the ground (after a nasty bump on the head from a roll off accident!) and all of her diapering supplies are on a bookshelf next to the mat. I don’t pre-stuff my diapers because I like to rotate the cloth inserts (we still use both the “newborn” and regular inserts interchangeably and haven’t had any leaking issues!). The Fuzzibunz diapers go in a metal basket, Grovia shells and Go Green diapers and their inserts go in another metal basket. The microfiber inserts for the Fuzzibunz go in a cloth bin with the flushable rice paper liners (makes changing a poopy diaper a breeze!). Used diapers go in our hanging wet beg on MK’s closet door and we keep some Rockin’ Green pail freshener on the bookcase to ward away any stinkies! I must say that cloth diapering doesn’t produce as much “stink” as using disposables. I used to gag going into MK’s room if her disposable diapers had been sitting in the diaper Dekor for more than a day. Now, the cloth diapers can sit in the hanging pail for a day or two and there is barely any stink! 

We’ve got a good laundering system down too. We are using Rockin’ Green detergent (although, once this runs out I’m going to be looking for something cheaper!) which seems to be doing the job. We wash our diapers every two to three days…I love doing laundry and probably do a load that often anyway, so this wasn’t a huge change for me! We have a standard 5ish year old top-loading washing machine that has pretty basic settings. To wash our CDs we do a cold pre-rinse (sometimes with Funk Rock, an ammonia buster if there is a stinky pee diaper!) followed by a hot rinse with 2 TBS Rockin’ Green, followed by a cold rinse. When it was hot and sunny outside, we sun dried our diapers. Now, we just put them in the dryer on low heat for 30 minutes! 

To sum up our short experience with cloth: it’s just as easy as disposables and not nearly as “yucky” as I thought (rice paper liners= no poop in the washing machine!). We have only used disposables a handful to times- when we have a babysitter, at church and recently when she had a nasty stomach bug!

Happy cloth diapering!

Love,

The Vogs

Catching up...

It's been a little while since I've posted on here. Honestly, it's been a combination of business, laziness and just not feeling like I have anything important to say! I am going to try to be better about updating the blog and I am praying about what the Lord would have me say!

So, to catch yall up... we have done a lot in the last few months...

Maddie celebrated her first birthday! She had a hungry caterpillar themed party and it was so fun! We were so blessed by all of our friends and family that were able to celebrate with us.

Lots of food for our hungry caterpillar! 

Us with our sweet birthday girl, post-cake!

She wasn't a fan of the icing, as you can tell! 

Mike and I celebrated 3 years, and went to Austin to celebrate. We had the best time just relaxing and soaking up our alone time. I never realized how much having a child affects our couple time until we were childless for a night! It was such a strange feeling, missing Maddie so much but also loving my uninterrupted Mike-Katy time! We had fun reflecting on our 3 years as man and wife and planning for the year ahead.

Maddie is blossoming into a toddler before our eyes every day! She has been walking since eleven months, but now she is climbing and exploring like crazy. She is learning new words every day. As of today, she knows: mama, dada, book, cup, poo-poo, up, done, more, night night, dog, hi, bye and please... and I'm sure a ton others that I just can't decipher yet! She knows that dogs say "woof woof", cows say "moo" and snakes say "hiss." She understands and follows simple commands and really likes "helping" mommy clean and put away the dishes! She is just precious, and we fall more in love with her every day!

Like I said earlier, I am vowing to be much better at updating the blog! I've already got a Halloween/Pumpkin patch post in the works and an update on our cloth diapering adventures!

Happy Halloween!
Love,
The Vogs