…Baby!! We did it! We made it through the ultrasound without finding out the gender. Nathan did so well not caving into my pleadings, haha. I am so glad we didn’t find out though. The doctor was so supportive of our decision and explained how they will show us the baby and let Nathan make the announcement at the delivery. It’s going to be such a special moment! They also said that Chacha looks perfect, super healthy and there is nothing that they are concerned about at this time. Praise Jesus!!!! Chacha is 12 oz and was squirming all over the place. I just love having ultrasounds and seeing my baby. It is so amazing.
We get to see our baby today!!! I am at 20 weeks pregnant! Crazy!!! I apologize for all the exclamation points. I am just really excited. I keep going back and forth and this minute I want to find out the gender. Nathan is standing strong and says we are going to be surprised. I am thankful he’s standing firm. Now I can be fickle but know it doesn’t really matter. That’s a nice feeling for a fickle person who loves stability.
So I just want to share the awesome ways God is providing for us and Chacha. Over a year ago my cousins gave my mom a bunch of baby clothes and stuff to store in there garage for whenever we got pregnant. So I have a bassinet, a bunch of boy clothes. I’ve already gone through it and picked out the neutral pieces. I also have a friend who is moving to Poland (!) in the summer and she is giving me her son’s crib and changing table and possibly other things!! Then I went to a friend’s house who told me she was getting rid of a ton of her baby stuff and invited me to take whatever I wanted. I took a swing, a vibrating cradle thing, and a bunch of toys. We were talking and I mentioned in passing about really wanting to clothe diaper. She got really excited and went to her attic and brought down a bin full of Best Bottom clothe diapers. Then she just gave them to me! She told me that God has used so many people to bless them when they had babies that she wanted to do it for us. It was so amazing and sweet! I am so thankful for all of the things that everyone is giving to us. God is using you to bless us in such an amazing way! THANK YOU!!
2013 is going to be more exciting than I thought it would be a few months ago. If all goes accordingly, we have the first 6 months of 2013 to plan for our baby and then ChaCha will grace us with his/her presence and our lives will be changed forever…for..ev…er…(that is supposed to be read in a Squints voice from Sandlot). Nathan and I are still in the “one minute we are super excited, the next minute we are freaked out of our minds” stage of the pregnancy. Honestly, we will probably be in this stage for the rest of our kids lives. I am feeling kicks a lot now. Nate can feel them too so this does make it seem more real and not as scary/unknown. Though I have crazy dreams about breastfeeding every other night and that is still scary/unknown. Moving On…
I do have some goals for 2013.
1) Stay on top of laundry. Nate and I have so many clothes. It’s actually pretty embarrassing…Well, since we have so many clothes I can seriously go 2-3 weeks without doing laundry. Gross, I know…*Embarrassing confession time…I may have even bought extra underwear for us when we got married so I wouldn’t have to do laundry so often. No judging!! I was four years younger and I was also a full time student and worked full time* Since we are adding a new member to our family this year and that it will be at the age of messiness, puking, and pooping, I know I will have so much extra laundry…So I am taking the next 6 months to instill good laundry habits into my life. I am also going through our clothes and getting rid of the ones we don’t wear or only wear when we get down to the bottom of our drawers. I should probably get rid of our overabundance of undies too…then I will definitely have to stay on top of it more! One tip I have found…fold the clothes right out of the drier (Thanks! Sharon Winkler). I fold each item before I put it in the basket. This has helped out immensely!
2) Tithe Consistently. Some years we are good at this. Some we are bad. 2012 was a bad year. This makes me sad but the only thing we can do now is repent and resolve that 2013 will be a good year in this area and make it so! Bringing a child into the world is a wake up call and I want to be a good example to them. I can’t tell them the importance of giving back to God in this area if I am not doing it myself! Tithing is definitely an issue of faith but also of thankfulness to God. I definitely want to get back on track with this one!
3) Journal. My sister in law, Kari gave me this awesome 5 year Line a Day journal (Thanks Kari!). I want to definitely fill that out every day but also journal more. I have so many thoughts and opinions that I choose not to share with people and I really enjoy journaling them down so I don’t forget. I journaled all the time growing up and I miss it.
These are my main goals for this year. I tried to keep them manageable but they are important to me. Making your goals public is scary because it leads to accountability (which is good) but it also shows others that you aren’t perfect. There are things that we all need to work on in our lives and when other see that I think it can encourage them to make better choices. Well, believe me, I am not perfect and this list should be way longer but I chose a chunk that I knew I could handle. I’ve loved what others have resolved to work on this year and feel free to comment with your 2013 goals!
Well, today is a sad day. My parents had to put down my childhood dog, Locket. Locket is the puppy that I prayed for and she appeared on our doorsteps two weeks later. Mom and Dad were going to take her to the shelter but I told them that I had prayed for a puppy and there she was. I still don’t believe in coincidence, especially when it comes to prayers. They decided to let us keep her but I remember dad asking me to let him know what I was praying for in the future. 🙂 Locket was a wonderfully sweet dog and I am going to miss her so much. I cried a lot harder then I expected when I said goodbye to her this morning. She was so sick and in pain. I know it was for the best. We have wonderful memories with her, Shiloh, and Sadie. As Seth said, Locket was the last link to our childhood. We love and miss you Locket Marie!
Well, I know this will not be a very popular post but it has been on my mind and heart for a couple of days. I couldn’t fall asleep last night and prayed about this very subject for awhile. I humbly write this to you all and if you start this post I ask that you read through the whole thing. This post is written to Christ Followers and is regarding the subject of our 2nd Amendment rights and gun control. The first thing I want to say is how sad I was seeing so many posts on Facebook regarding our 2nd Amendment Rights the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In my opinion that action was completely insensitive and outright disgusting. As Christians we need to stop claiming our “rights” all of the time. Paul says we are supposed to die to ourselves every day! We are a new creation and our goals are to reach out and share the love of Jesus with our neighbors. This is Christmas, the time of year we celebrate God Incarnate who humbled Himself and gave up His rights to come here and save us. Jesus died for you, me, those babies and teachers who died on Friday. Jesus also died for the shooter too. If Jesus claimed His rights, which honestly His rights are a lot more deserved than our rights, there would be absolutely no hope in the world. I guess what I am trying to get at, try to be sensitive to people and a nation who are mourning such a terrible, traumatic event. Friday, the last thing I cared about was the fact that I can carry a gun. I was thinking and praying for the families who hugged and kissed there loved ones for the last time that morning, not knowing they will never see them breathing again. I also wonder who if any knew Jesus?
Our 2nd Amendment Rights are not an eternal subject. It is not something that has benefit for eternity. I really feel like this subject is becoming a distraction used by Satan to get us riled up. I beg you to not get distracted by it. Do not let this be something that turns you off to unbelievers. The Gospel is offensive enough (1 Cor 1) to the unbeliever. Why add other things to the mix to get their blood boiling? I am not asking you to never speak of it again. I am just asking for moderation. Posting 100 pictures of guns, knives, cars, bombs and then making the correlation to gun rights is honestly just annoying and has no possible way of actually making sure the laws don’t change. Please, if this is something you are passionate do something productive about it. Keep informed about the current and changing laws, contact your politicians. Get your facts from real sources not just forwards from Facebook. The key is to get off of Facebook and do something about it. My passion right now is protecting unborn babies from abortion and also sharing with girls that abortion is not their only option. Sharing hope with them. I made a commitment to myself that I would not post pictures or memes on Facebook about this passion and here are a few reasons why.
1) Approximately 40% of women have had an abortion and 70% percent of women that have abortions claim to be Christians. I have a lot of female Christian friends on Facebook and I am sure a few of them have had an abortion. I do not know where they are at in the healing process of that abortion and I do not want to hurt any one those women by an insensitive meme. Rather, I want my Facebook page to be encouraging and full of forgiveness and hope.
2) Abortion is a hot topic that makes a lot of people mad. My main passion and goal in life is to share the Gospel with my friends…I do not want to turn people away from that by irresponsible and poorly sited Facebook posts. If someone were to come to me and ask me about abortion and my beliefs I will not lie. I will be honest and share my beliefs and share what God says about life in the Bible.
3) Unsaved people do not have the same worldview that Christians do. They also do not have the Holy Spirit to discern things for them. To me, the fact that you can’t harm a Bald Eagle’s egg without breaking the law but you can legally kill an unborn baby doesn’t make sense. This is because I know that God values humans so much. In my opinion, with this gap between worldviews these Facebook meme’s are not productive.
*Note: This post is not written in direct response to any one person or persons. It’s just a response to a trend that I have noticed among a large group of people so please know that this is not geared toward one person individually but to everyone. Also know, I love you all my Facebook friends (that is why I am friends with you) and blog readers. That is why I felt compelled to write this.
This week has been relatively relaxing after the Thanksgiving holiday. I am so thankful for that. Nate and I are spending the weekend in the country at my parents. It’s amazing how relaxing and quiet the country is. The fact that the house doesn’t shake every time a semi drives by is nice too. I just love being home. Nate’s happy because he gets to make fires in the fireplace and plays the X-Box 360 for hours at a time. Win/Win!
So I bought a Bellyband this week. Initially I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, I was wrong. What is the Bellyband you ask? It’s essentially a spandex sleeve that goes around your belly so you can wear your pants unbuttoned…stupid. Who wants to walk around with there pants unbuttoned? “Not me”, I thought…gross. I was also very skeptical at it’s ability to work but let me tell you, It’s amazing! They keep up my pants very well and they are more comfortable than wearing a belt. I don’t have to feel like I’m bursting at the seams anymore and I get to wear my favorite jeans still! I don’t know if I’m going to wear jeans the buttoned way after pregnancy or not. I may just have to stick with the Bellyband forever…I wish I was joking, but I’m not. *I’m sorry for those local who will be wondering the next time you see me, “Does she have her pants buttoned or not?” Just assume I don’t.*
So I had my first Crazy Momma moment this week. Yesterday and today were kind of scary but mostly due to me over thinking. I had some cramping yesterday and called the doctor. They told me to take it easy and if I felt like I needed to come in then to call them the next day. I had no other signs just the cramping and we all thought it was probably gas (tmi…i know). Well I just kept thinking about it and feeling every little cramp so I went in today for the peace of mind. My doctor is awesome and they didn’t make me feel crazy. I really appreciate that. The first thing they did was the sonogram and I cried when I heard the heart beat. Best feeling ever! They said the heart sounded great so I was pleasantly surprised when they did an ultrasound too! Chacha has grown a lot the past two weeks! He doesn’t have as much room to jump around so I think he is resorting to punching me instead. I can’t wait until I can feel him! Thank you Lord that ChaCha is healthy and growing!! Here is a video if you want to watch.
It’s amazing how much love you can feel for someone you have never seen…I love you baby!
The past couple of weeks have been so busy! Thankfully that has made them go by quickly. Now I hope the days slow down a bit since it is Christmas time. I truly love this time of the year.
We had our doctor’s appointment last week. We got to hear the baby’s heart beat. It was awesome. I also have some new ultrasound pictures!! Disclaimer 1: ChaCha is the baby’s nickname until he is born. Disclaimer 2: We don’t know ChaCha’s gender so just to be consistent I’m going to say “he” for the baby. This does not mean we are hoping for a boy. It just means that I HATE calling the baby “it” and that I have been saying “he” without even realizing it for the past week and now it has stuck.
This one ChaCha looks like he is sucking his thumb! So adorable!
This one is of his hand. He was jumping around and waving at me the whole time!
This picture is a close up of ChaCha’s face.
This last one is just an adorable picture of ChaCha.
I fell even more in love with ChaCha while I saw him during the ultrasound. He was so active and hyper! I think we are going to have our hands full. I’m so excited!
Here are some belly pictures as well. I feel like I have grown a ton this week. The twelve week picture was taken at the beginning of my twelve weeks and the thirteen picture was taken at the end of my thirteenth week so there is more than a week between them. I only gained two lbs in my first trimester and that is a good thing. I’ve probably gained another two lbs this week though. Oh well! Baby is healthy and that makes me happy!
In other news, we finally set up our Christmas tree. It got misplaced and stored away in the rafters of my dad’s garage. Thankfully it’s been returned and we even found the star topper that had also gone missing! Bart and Alice love the Christmas tree.
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