Come and listen! Let me tell you what HE has done!!!

"Come and listen, all you who fear God;
let me tell you what he has done for me.
I cried out to him with my mouth;
his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the LORD would not have listened;
But God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

Psalm 66:16-20

Truly this is my anthem today! I want to shout from the rooftops how GREAT our GOD is!!! He alone answers prayer and can preform miracles beyond what we even ask or imagine! And He has done just that in our little Elliana this weekend...

So what is all the fuss about, you ask?

Well, the same baby who just days ago would not bring anything to her mouth, especially food, has had a dramatic change and is now feeding herself all kinds of things! And waving bye-bye AND clapping AND playing peek-a-boo AND trying to pull herself up AND saying more in sign language!!! WHAT HAPPENED?

Well, in a short answer: GOD.

But a few of the details are as follows.

It all started at the Holt Picnic on Sunday afternoon.


Elliana got to hang out with some pretty cute kids while we were there.



And she LOVED it.


And as she sat back and watched her friend Rose devour a yummy cupcake...


I think she started to feel a bit left out :-)


So she started putting things in her mouth. (not sure what that is in the picture, but it's clear that she is putting whatever it is into her mouth!)

As the afternoon went on, another mom noticed her trying to eat some bark that she had found. I was seriously in shock! So this sweet mom grabs a graham cracker and trades her for the bark. She immediately put it straight to her mouth and started chomping down!

Of course I just happened to have the pictures to prove it! :-)


I was so thrilled I could just kiss her! Well, actually I did. As well as this other sweet girl!



Now I know that to most anyone this is soooo not a big deal. I mean duh, of course a baby is going to want to feed herself graham crackers right?! What is the big deal?

I'll tell you what the big deal is! In the almost 3 months since Elliana has been with us, she has not eaten ANYTHING by herself. Not one cracker or cheerio- NOTHING. I feed her everything. She never puts anything to her mouth- which is one of the reasons she was assesed at a 5-6 month developmental level.

This is HUGE.

Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, we came home and tried again and over the past two days I have been giving her all sorts of things to try and eat by herself. Wow- she amazes us! She is eating crackers, cookies, pasta, eggs, and fruit bars. And the best part about it... she is sooooo happy!

Yesterday morning:

And today while we were doing school, instead of her usual fussiness while I try to teach the boys- she was just sitting there chomping down on her crackers just content as can be! Oh yes- you'd better believe this is a big deal! I even got a bit on video just because I was so excited for her!
Check out her cute little noises- like she is saying mmm mmm good! ANd look at how she switches from hand to hand!

So not only is she eating a ton more and happy about it, her tummy problems have seem to almost dissappeared, and in the past two days she has done things she could never do before. She now can say "more" in sign language, plays peek a boo by putting the blanket on her head and taking it off, pulls herself to her knees and can almost get to standing, if you stand her up to the coffee table she can balance by herself, she can clap, says mama and dada almost consistently and has begun to explore more of the house as she crawls around.

Again, I must repeat: she could not do any of these things before.

And last week by the end of the week, I felt so very discouraged about a lot of things. It had been a rough week and I had been praying and honestly felt like I had nothing left. I was done and no idea how I was going to make it through one more week like the one we had just had.
And then Sunday came.
Randy was gracious enough to stay out with Elliana so I could sit in the service that morning. I did not realize it had been over 3 MONTHS since I had sat in church and listened to a message! And I had forgotten how much my weary soul needed the encouragement and fellowship of being in the Word with other believers. As our pastor preached about drinking from the Living Water, I had to finally recognize my thirst and utter dependence on Him to sustain me. I had been relying on my own strength to just make it through the days last week and I was left empty and parched dry. I was ready to be filled with the Spirit again and let Christ live through me.
And I prayed that no matter what this next week would bring, I would trust Him to carry the burden for me. And He has done just that.
And of course it has been much more than that.


Just when we think that there is no way to go on...

He does infinitely abundantly MORE than all we could ask or imagine.


Will you join me in giving Him all the glory and praise for what He has done?!