Haiti

We want to thank everyone who has given to Haiti through our fund raising effort. We still have about $650 to go before we reach our goal. Can I be honest with you? When I set up this page and informed Amy about it (Like how I didn't ask permission?), I figured if we got $100 it would be a wild success. So, to be at $369.22 after just a few days has blown me away.

There are a lot of people who have shown interest in what we are doing but have yet to donate through our link. Frankly, I could care less whether people donate through our effort as long as they show their support (financially or prayerfully).

Thanks for joining with us and supporting our brothers and sisters in Haiti. You can click on the link to the left to donate to Samaritan's Purse for Haiti relief.

3 x 5

Mr. Bean and I just came from a church meeting where the pastor proposed the following items.

1. Spend 5 minutes before and after service greeting people you do not know.
2. Pray for 5 friends who do not know the Lord.
3. Make intentional connections with 5 people you have not before.

He handed out 3 x 5 cards for us all to jot down the 3 x 5 thoughts.

This is one of the intentional goals to help us as a church be more friendly to newcomers.

Meeting our Goals

Mr. Bean, my husband, pointed out to me yesterday that I met my breastfeeding goal of 1 year! Of course, this goal is a revised goal as my original goal was 6 weeks. Once I hit that, I extended my goal to 3 months...then 6 months...now 1 year. According to this link, only 17.2% of breastfeeding moms in the U.S. made it to this milestone in 2003. Only 5.7% made it past 18 months (kudos to my co-blogger, Amy, who is in this elite group of women).

I am quite proud of myself for making it this far. As I've mentioned before, I ran into lots of common breastfeeding problems. Here are a few:

• String Bean was a lazy sucker
• String Bean had a recessed jaw (which has now resolved itself)
• I had to exclusively pump for the first 4 weeks of her life until she was strong enough to overcome the lazy sucker and recessed jaw problems
• I had surgery when String Bean was 4 months old (gall bladder removal) which caused me to lose my milk supply all together
• I had to go on drugs to increase the supply since none of the traditional methods of increasing supply worked
• String Bean has her father's metabolism which translates into barely hanging onto the charts those pediatricians give you that say how heavy your baby should be. This meant a lot of stress about getting enough into her to help her maintain and gain weight.

All those concerns are behind us now. I accomplished my goal! I'm not planning on adding a revised goal at this point since I know I've done what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for breastfeeding. I'll continue to breastfeed String Bean as long as she wants to. If she's still breastfeeding at age 2, I may just cut her off though!

What goals are you working toward? What goals have you accomplished? Brag here. Brag away!