So thankful for all of you!

[This post is back-dated several days -- this is something we've been wanting to say for a while!]

The first days of Joshua's life have been something of a blur -- we're finally starting to settle into a routine of sorts, which is helping us to really enjoy our time with the little guy!

One thing has been made abundantly clear to us during these first few weeks: we have amazing friends.

Before Joshua was born, we had so many people making offers of help, telling us to call them if we ever needed anything at all, letting us know that they'd be more than happy to bring food or help out around the house if we needed it. We so appreciated all of these offers! But David and I both tend to be reluctant to ask people for favors. Even though coming home with our first newborn would certainly be an acceptable reason to ask for help, we still defaulted towards not wanting to impose on others or to directly ask for a meal or other help.

Which is why it's so wonderful that we have friends willing to step in and do that for us. :) Our church has a tradition of coordinating meals for parents of newborns, so our dear friend Danielle got the email addresses of our small groups and started consolidating all the offers of help we'd been given. She created a schedule and worked it out so that we've had a wonderful homemade meal brought to us every couple days.

And let me tell you, it's been such a blessing to us, having hot meals and good friends coming to us at regular intervals! :) Especially the very first few days home from the hospital -- after spending several hours just trying to feed and soothe Joshua and stressing out about whether we're doing things right, it was such a pick-me-up to have food prepared for us.

And all of our friends are such good cooks! Seriously, we've never eaten so well. And they've all gone way above and beyond in adding thoughtful details to the meals -- from a pint of Bent Spoon sorbet (because we're not likely to make it out for an ice cream run in town any time soon), to warm homemade chocolate chip cookies, to a chicken tortilla soup recipe that I never would have tried on my own but that we both absolutely loved... We've been so blessed by all of you!

We've also loved seeing everyone's excitement at Joshua's birth. It's so fun to read your comments on our Facebook photos and on our walls -- we of course know that Joshua is the cutest baby in the world, but it's nice to have that truth affirmed by all of you as well. :) Usually, I delete email notifications from Facebook -- it's generally enough to have the comments, etc. on my profile itself. But I haven't been able to bring myself to delete the notifications of your congratulatory messages -- Facebook isn't the best historical archive, and I really want to save all of these messages, so they're staying in my inbox.

Thank you so much for sharing in our joy and excitement. We love you all!