Gratitude.

2011 has been a tumultuous and eventful year in our household.

I was pregnant and expecting our third child to come in June. We had some known complications in my pregnancy, but we were hopeful i would carry our little babe to term.

As we moved through the winter, I started having a lot of contractions and losing lots of blood. Unfortunately, I became very sick and ended up being admitted to the hospital. After many complications and an emergency c-section, we welcomed our beautiful son into the world on March 7th, at 27 weeks gestation.

The past 5 weeks have been emotional and stressful. I am abundantly thankful to be able to say that I am doing great and our baby is growing and progressing wonderfully. We still have many weeks until he will leave the NICU, but we are all doing better.

And through my hospitalization and recovery and the past weeks of us dividing life between the NICU and home, we have been abundantly blessed by our family and friend's generosity. People have so generously prayed for us. Friends have watched our children so we can be in the hospital. Family has flown into town to help us in our time of need. And we have received amazing meals from friends to get us through the days well fed.

A friend of mine set up a wonderful meal schedule for our family through the website www.TakeThemAMeal.com. We have received delicious food three nights a week and it has been such a gift.

The website is incredibly user friendly and allows the people bringing meals to sign up at their convenience and see what everyone else is bringing. It allows you to change dates if needed and see where the greatest need for a family is.

It has been such a blessing to receive food so that our family is well nourished as we walk through this time. Consider taking a meal to someone in need...or even coordinating meals for a friend!