Busy Month

Yes, I'm still here. No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

December was a whirlwind of events! We were quite the busy bees. We had a lovely Christmas in Tennessee with my family. We drove up during the night on the 23rd and relaxed in a park upon our arrival. Phoenix and Ella were thankful to get out of that van. Okay, Phoenix was thankful. He's not a very good traveler. We were finally able to get into our "in town" cabin later that day, only to find it way up on a mountain! It's a good thing it didn't snow. It was fun, and we had a beautiful view. We had a wonderful Christmas Day in the cabin and ate way too much! We went to Dollywood and had a funnel cake! Okay that wasn't the only thing we did there. It was strange not being able to get on any rides! We drove up in the Smoky Mountains and Phoenix and Ella made quite the spectacle of themselves. People were following us around with cameras taking pictures of our gorgeous huskies. You would have thought they were movie stars. Phoenix was pleased. He likes posing. Before we knew it, it was time to go home. Obviously everyone else was of the same mindset. Traffic was horrid. It took 13 hours to get home. My pregnant self was really feeling it. Speaking of which...

My growing belly is getting in the way of more things! It's humorous because I find myself having to consciously compensate for the ever growing belly! I've smacked into many a door. Richard is just having fun making fun of me! He'll pay, he will. I'll have a huge long labor and he'll be at my beck and call and have to rub my back the entire time.

It's amazing, pregnancy really does eat your brain. Mine is seemingly gone.

My pregnancy has progressed very well. Gracie is doing good and growing like a weed. She's found a nice spot in my ribcage to "rest" her little feet! I am fair to midland I suppose. I feel good, which is definitely a blessing. My blood pressure has been high, at least in the Dr's office, so they are a tad concerned. I had bloodwork done to check for preeclampsia and the results came back okay. Now I have to do a 24 hour urinalysis. Joy and rapture. I'll know by the end of the week. I've no other symptoms of it so I'm hoping for the best. Grace needs to stay in there! It's so hard to believe I'm 33 weeks along. Yikes! I've already been having braxton hicks. We're getting ready!

I am hurridly preparing for a little girl to come home. I've procrastinated on the nursery and am now paying. It's kind of interesting, having this intense desire to nest and clean everything! I can't help it. I re-arranged the kitchen cabinets. Why? I don't know. The urge hit while I was making Christmas goodies. So I did it. Our bedroom dresser, bathroom, kitchen hutch, hall closets, and guest bedroom closet got it too.

My church baby shower was this past Saturday and my Mom and sister drove up. It was a lot of fun. I got all kinds of cute things and had fun oohing and ahhing over them! I forget to take my camera out so I have no pics. Thank heavens for Auntie Amanda and everyone else who took pics!

I've got Christmas pics for now. I'll get shower pics later!

Happy Birthday To Us

December 7th Richard and I both celebrated our birthdays. For anyone who doesn't know, my husband and I were both born on December 7th. It's kind of nice sharing our birthday!
It's fun to see people's faces when they realize we have the same birthday.
We spent our birthday morning sleeping in. We finally got up and around and headed to Panera for a late breakfast. We then went to Target and did a little shopping. We mosied around St. Johns Town Center and then finally headed to Firehouse Subs for lunch. If you sign up on their website they send you a coupon for a free sub on your birthday. We then headed to the theatre and watched "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". It was very good...made me cry, but it was good.
Afterwards we went home and changed into warmer clothes, then headed to Adventure Landing and played mini golf. It was cold, but a lot of fun! I started out nicely, thought I was going to win for once, then completely lost it! We finished the evening at Coldstone Creamery. I discovered that Cheesecake Fantasy is my new passion. Yum it was good. Gracie liked it too! We ended up back at home and ordered a pizza later. We had a nice birthday together.

Richard worked all day Monday and I puttered around the house taking care of odds and ends. We ended up at Walmart later that night and he got something to fix the tree. So we finally have a whole Christmas tree!

I had finished off my Floradix Sunday and decided to see if I could go without it. Big mistake. I've only been off of it for two days and I am completely worthless. I slept most of the day! We went and got more this afternoon so hopefully it will kick in soon. Cuz I'm tired!

Unfortunately with my pregnancy brain I forgot to take a camera along on our birthday. I also completely forgot that I have a camera on my phone. So no pictures. I do, however, have some lovely pictures of the fur kids! Ha. Yes, I know what you're thinking. "If they take this many pictures of animals how many will there be of Gracie??" A lot...a whole heck of a lot.

Colds, Turkies & Christmas Trees

I'm not sure how this happens. I seem to lose track of time and before I know it, it's been ages since I've blogged.
Things have been busy around here. I'm still stuck in November. It's hard to believe it's December and Christmas is right around the corner. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like Christmas.
I had an interesting Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I was miserably sick. I had been in the nursery at church the prior Sunday and picked something up in there. This isn't the first time this has happened. I managed to do okay until Wednesday night. Driving down South I started feeling nasty. By Thursday I was miserable. I couldn't taste or smell. So much for Thanksgiving dinner! I was NOT a happy camper! LOL! Friday was the same. It was the first time ever that I did not go shopping. I was even more unhappy. Richard, on the other hand was on cloud nine! They rented a Harley for him and he and my Dad went riding! You should have seen him, he looked like a little boy on Christmas morning! Unfortunately I have no pictures. Thankfully Mom and Amanda got some.
Later on, Mom came to the rescue and brought home some Zicam. I could finally breathe! Sweet relief.
Saturday night we went to the River House to celebrate Dad and Mom's anniversary. On the way home we stopped at BabiesRUs, and then stopped by Amanda's dorm room so I could check it out. We had an interesting episode with a bug. LOL!
Sunday evening was spent playing Taboo. We had fun. Belly hurt laughing fun. Bottom chairs and straight jackets fun. Please don't ask. LOL!
Monday came way too soon and we had to head back home. Once we were back in Jacksonville I took advantage of the rental and got my grocery shopping done!
Phoenix must have really been worn out because he slept the rest of the day. He didn't even want treats! He and Ella had too much fun. Now he misses her!
Tuesday and Wednesday passed in a blur. Richard yanked down the Christmas tree. It was brand new and we had put it up last year just to make sure it would work in the house. The top broke when we were taking it back down last year. Why we didn't take it back I don't know. Actually it probably had a lot to do with the fact that we had gone through 3 or 4 trees for one reason or another. He was sick of returning them. Now it's too late. So it sat half put together in the living room. He rigged it for me and I went to put ornaments on it tonight, only to have it snap off. I'm feeling kind of scroogey. Ha. I had serious thoughts of just tossing it back in the garage and not having a Christmas tree. Especially since two hoodlum cats can't keep themselves from chewing on it! Anyone want two cats?? Just kidding.
On to a happier note. I had a baby appointment this morning. Gracie is doing just fine. Oh by the way, we have officially named her! After much debate. Mommy won out! Teehee. I had been smitten with Gracie for a very long time. Thanks to Ben Folds. The song is in my playlist...take a listen. Richard was completely opposed and hated it. Even though I used his Mother's middle name Lee. It seemed everyone else liked it except for him. I had decided to just leave it alone and figured we'd eventually figure something out. Finally in the middle of the grocery store one night he decided he liked it...except her official name had to be Grace. He didn't think she'd like Gracie once she was all grown up. Fine...just know I'm calling her Gracie...forever. =) So Gracie Lee it is.
Gracie is a very happy baby, so says the midwife. She kept wiggling while we listened to her heartbeat. And Mommy didn't gain too much weight after Thanksgiving...so she is very happy!
Since I haven't put any pics in for a while, and promised a picture of the leaf "bowl" here are some. These are my Thanksgiving crafts.

The leaf bowl was a ladies church craft. The turkies I did for place settings at Thanksgiving.

Jolly Beggars

I came across this quote while I was organizing the office today. I have a bad habit of writing things down and then misplacing them! Or having a little help misplacing them! Ha!
It is from the book "What's So Amazing About Grace" by Philip Yancey. In it he quotes CS Lewis. Anyways, I thought I would share.

As a child, I put on my best behavior on Sunday mornings, dressing up for God and for the Christians around me. It never occured to me that church was a place to be honest. Now, though, as I seek to look at the world through the lens of grace, I realize that imperfection is the prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks.
My pride still tempts me to put on the best front, to clean up appearances. "It is easy to acknowledge," said CS Lewis, "but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little-however little-native luminosity? Surely we can't be quite creatures."
He goes on, "Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need; a joy in total dependence. We become jolly beggars."
We creatures, we jolly beggars, give glory to God by our dependence. Our wounds and defects are the very fissures through which grace might pass.
It is our human destiny on earth to be imperfect, incomplete, weak, and mortal, and only by accepting that destiny can we escape the force of gravity and receive grace. Only then can we grow close to God.

I'm Still Here

It's been quite a while since I've blogged. I'm still here. Tired...but here!

A lot has been going on since I last blogged. Dad, Mom and Amanda were here for a weekend. We enjoyed ourselves. After they left I caught Richard's cold and we were both sick for a while. So basically nothing got done around the house!

We are both better and back to somewhat normal.

Last week some of the ladies from our church had craft night. We made fabric leaf bowls. I made two of them. Naturally had help with the sewing! Me and sewing machines don't mix. Ha. I'm looking forward to our next craft night. We're making some kind of gingerbread pots.

I had another appointment this past Friday with my midwife. The baby is nice and healthy! She's got a good heartbeat and very active. I had my glucose test and my blood sugar is well. No gestational diabetes for me! They also tested my hemoglobin, which was too low. This explains a lot. I've been extremely tired. I blamed it on being sick and then the weather. It just seemed like I had no energy and I slept all the time! So now I am taking Floradix. Hopefully I will start feeling better soon!

Today I am at 24 weeks. It's so hard to believe that I'm this far along already. Time has just flown by so quickly. I've got a big prego belly. Richard enjoys poking fun at me! He's fascinated with all of this. She likes moving around and poking me non stop. She's quite the night owl as well. We're waiting for her to start kicking hard enough to see from the outside. He's already informed me that it's quite strange!

I've been in the nesting mood for the past couple of weeks. The house has been torn apart! I've been cleaning and organizing everything. It's funny being pregnant.

Anyways, that's it for now. I need to go clean. =)

I came across this on YouTube yesterday and thought I would share. If you've never read Gianna I would encourage you to go pick it up. It's about Gianna Jessen.

It's a Girl!

It became official as of Friday! We are having a little girl! We are very excited. As are a certain Grandma and Auntie! We've already gone shopping!

My Mom and sister were able to come along to the ultrasound with Richard and I. It was such a nice place. We had a 4D ultrasound done and saw our little miss swimmin around! Thankfully she behaved herself and sat still long enough to show us she was a girl!

I will update our weekend adventures later. For now here are some pics!


She kept putting her fingers up by her face.

So sweet

Love those baby feet!

Ho Hum Days

There's not a whole lot that's been going on around here. Everything's pretty ho hum. This weekend will be filled with excitement. My family is coming up, we are very excited. Phoenix is itching to see Ella. He gets very excited when I say her name. He understands me, he does.
We are also having a 4D ultrasound. Very excited for that. This kid better cooperate or I'll probably cry. I'm dying to find out the sex. It's been killing me.
It's been very cool here this week. Highs only in the low to mid 70's. It gets chilly at night. I absolutely love it.
Richard has started serving in the Audio/Visual Room at church. He's in charge of the powerpoint and making sure everything is running smoothly. This means he is at church at 7:30 on Sundays and 5:30 on Wednesdays. Not my favorite part! It's very time consuming but he loves it.
I'm still in the Nursery with the babies. We'll see how much longer that lasts.
It's been forever since I've posted recipes on here. I need to get that up and running.
I do have a movie recommendation. Richard and I watched Miss Potter a few days ago and loved it. Very clean and very good. It's about Beatrix Potter, the author and illustrator known for her children's books. I highly recommend it.

Remembering Our Babies

October is Miscarriage Awareness Month. As many of you probably know, we lost our baby on March 19th of this year. It's hard to believe that I would have been giving birth this month. Nine months passed so quickly. My heart still aches, but it's gotten easier. God has blessed us with another little miracle, and we are more thankful than words can ever express.

So to everyone out there who has ever lost a child, my heart is with you. I relish in the fact that our baby is safe in the arms of Jesus.

After our loss I came across this website. It's a little presentation sure to make you cry. Click on the "View Presentation" link on the right.

http://www.ispokewithmychild.com/

The Crosswalk

We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we cannot.

Whatever your cross, Whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call.... He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear... Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, by dawn's early light... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love.