Milestones! Milestones! Milestones!

It's been a while since I've updated on Rachel and lately she's been hitting milestones, one right after another.

Rachel is officially out of her infant carrier and into a car seat. She'd been heading towards outgrowing her infant carrier for a while, but once she started trying to sit up in it, we knew it was time to move her to the bigger car seat. However, we kept the carrier in the back of the van for a few weeks because we knew we could get her to sleep in it if needed when we were out and about. I finally took it out of the van this last week and discovered that a friend was in need of an extra infant carrier. So I packed that up along with the two bases and took it to her. Was a sad moment in giving it away...it was the infant carrier in which Hannah used as a baby, and then Rachel. We're pretty sure we're done as far as having additional children, however, should the Lord decide otherwise, we'll cross the bridge of acquiring another infant carrier then. LOL

The other milestone Rachel is quickly going to accomplish is that of crawling! She's gotten pretty good at getting on all fours and rocking. There's been a couple of times that she's actually moved her hands like she should when she's crawling. At this point it's only a matter of a week or two and she'll have it down.

I know I say it with every month's ending, but I just can't believe Rachel is 8 months old this weekend! It really saddens me to see how quickly time flies with the second baby (but not enough for getting pregnant again!). Rachel continues to eat well, sleep through the night, and is an all around happy and good natured baby. We're still struggling with her eating cereal. She just won't put her tongue back in her mouth! LOL. On another sad note, Rachel's hair is lightening. It's becoming lighter and lighter as the days go by. It was once a really dark brown and not it's a really light brown with a little bit of red in it. Hopefully, she'll follow in my footsteps and become dark again as she grows up. Nothing against light colored hair, but I just think it'd be so cute to have a blondie and a dark brownie. LOL.

As for Rachel's next surgery. It won't be until July or August. It's been nice not having to make phone calls and appointments in preparation for surgery the last couple of months. But we'll be facing it all too soon. I'm going to start calling the plastic surgeon's office here in the next couple of weeks to see about things. Rachel's plastic surgeon was to have left, and I want to make sure we get on the books with the replacement plastic surgeon.

Rachel is such a blessing to our family and to our lives. It's hard to imagine what our life would be without her!

Update on Emily

Just wanted to post an update on Emily since I've had a few people email me and ask about her. Emily had her surgery yesterday and is doing extremely well!! Thank you for your prayers for little Emily! If you'd like to continue to follow Emily and her recovery, you can by visiting her web site http://ouremily.blogspot.com.

Prayers for Emily...

I know there are many friends and family who check Rachel's Journey regularly who pray for Rachel. I'm hoping that those friends and family will now offer up prayers for little Emily.

Like Rachel, Emily was also born with a cleft. However, Emily was born with a bilateral cleft. It was much, much worse than Rachel's. Emily is scheduled for surgery for Tuesday (the 19th) to have her palate repaired and tubes placed in her ears. However, I received an email this morning from Emily's mommy that Emily has a really bad cold and an ear infection! They aren't sure at this point whether or not surgery will still be performed in 4 days. Unfortunately we know the stress and anxiety that comes with potentially having surgery cancelled due to being sick.

Emily's story and the help and encouragement I've gotten from her mommy, Jackie, have meant more than I could ever express. It would be such a joy to know that our friends and family who pray for Rachel, will also include Emily in their prayers for a speedy recovery from her cold and that they will be able to go ahead with her surgery on Tuesday.

You can visit Emily's web site by clicking on the link in the link's section.