Thursday, December 18, 2008

37 weeks...

Oh my goodness, so this is what contractions feel like! I never really had them with my first two, but I have been having some real good, painful ones today. To the point where I must sit down and let it pass. Wow, this is kinda fun.

So I went to the doctor today and I have made very little progress. The only change is that he said I was closer to 2 cm. He also measured my belly and asked me how big my last baby was. I told him Tatum was 8 lbs 8 oz. He said this baby will be much smaller, not even 8 pounds. Don't know how he knows that, but I am hopeful he is right. Tatum gave us all a scare because she was so big I almost had to have a c-section with her.

Tomorrow is the last day of school! Yay! I don't know when I've looked forward to a break so much. I am getting my hair highlighted and cut on Saturday morning, then we are planning to go to a Shane & Shane concert at church that night. Then my sweet family is coming to Houston next Tuesday to spend Christmas with us! I am so excited and blessed that they are all willing to accomodate me & baby girl this year. We have never had a Christmas here at our house in seven years of marriage, so I am so looking forward to it. Mostly it will just be fun to have Martin & Dominique, my brother & sister-in-law around for a few days. Thanks so much for coming, y'all! It's supposed to be 70 degrees, so bring your golf clubs!

I don't have any updates on my prayer requests from yesterday, but thanks so much for taking a minute to pray for them. I will post an update when I find out more.

Happy Friday!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Please pray...

Please pray for Melinda, a co-worker. Her husband died unexpectedly last night. She has two kids, ages 5 and 2. I'm pretty sure she is a believer. Pray God will comfort and encourage her through this time, and provide for all her needs. Pray God will show me how I can help.

Please pray for Ray, one of my students. He has missed school the past week and I found out why today. He is homeless and has been looking for a job so he can afford to eat and find a place to sleep. Pray God will let him find a job so he can provide for himself. He is 18 and I don't know the details of why he is homeless now, but I know he has had a tough life, and been dealt some hard knocks during his life. Pray God will show me how I can help.

While you're praying, please lift up my family as Dec. 26 is the one-year anniversary of my cousin Josh's death. He was 31 when he died tragically last Christmas. Pray especially for my Aunt Janice (his mom), my cousins Charissa & Emily (his sisters) and his daughter, Aria. This time of year must be so bittersweet for them. Josh was the funniest, most gentle and loving person you could know. We all miss him terribly.

THANKS for your prayers!

Monday, December 15, 2008

crazy houston weather

So this morning i got up to go to work and it was about 65 degrees, I was feeling kinda hot with my capris and t-shirt. When i got off work at 10:30 and walked out to my car it was 45 degrees. What is up with this weather? Last wednesday there was SNOW at our house! I couldn't believe my eyes. We were so thrilled to see the beautiful white flakes falling from the sky. I didn't get any good pictures (yes, in houston, we take pictures when it snows), but my church got some good ones. click here to see our church getting snowed on last wednesday. Funny thing is on thursday it was back up to 75 degrees again. How on earth are you supposed to stay healthy with all these crazy changes? We all have sniffles and coughs from all the craziness. One day we're wearing shorts and flip-flops and the next day we've got on our winter hats and gloves! Seriously!

We get out of school this friday, possibly my last day for awhile. Or if sweet baby girl decides to wait around, I will return to school on Jan. 5 to work until my due date. (Please pray that she will come during the holidays!!!) Anyway, tomorrow is the last day I have to actually teach. I am showing my students "Cinderella Man" for the last 3 days of school. It is such a good film about life during the Great Depression, which is our current unit anyway. And it gives all of us a break from "real" education for a few days before the break. Although quite frankly, I believe good movies teach people alot more effectively than any teacher can about some things. If it were up to me, I would show a movie over each history unit we cover. I think the kids might actually learn something if we did. Oh well, I guess that's why they didn't put me in charge of curriculum!

On the home front, Tatum is learning new words everyday. Recently she has started saying "hold me up" which means "pick me up," but I haven't corrected her b/c it's too cute the way it is. It's so fun watching her little mind work and figure out how to "use her words" to get us to understand her.

Avery has a black eye, poor thing. She was chasing Brian yesterday and fell and knocked her eyebrow on the bottom drawer of our dresser. It bled like crazy... of course, Brian said it's no big deal, it's just a little cut. But then 4 bandaids later, he said, well she probably could've used a stitch or two, but oh well, it's too late now. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to be in too much pain. She's a pretty tough kid.

New baby girl is still nameless. I love her so much, and I think it might actually take us seeing her before we know her name. I don't want to put that pressure on us, but the name is just not coming to us that easily this time. I am going to the doctor every week now. Last Thursday I was 1 cm, 50% and -3 station. Sorry if that's TMI for anyone, but some people like to know. I'm really hoping for some progress when I go in this week.

I have been the hostess with the mostess lately. I don't know why this happens, but I always sign myself up to host things all at once. So I'll go for month or two and not have anyone over to our house, then for a week, I'll have several functions at my house right in a row.
We trade babysitting with two other families so that we can each get two date nights each month. Last week was our turn to babysit, which means we keep 7 kids (including ours) from 5-8 pm, feed them all dinner, bathe them all and put them in their PJ's then let them play until their parents get back. It's great when it's our turn to go out on a date b/c when we pick up our kids at 8:00, they are ready for bed. But when it's our turn to babysit, well it's chaos, but fun.

Here's our pajama pals: Jackson, Carson, Rylin, Avery, Tatum, Jacob & Julia

Then Saturday I hosted a playgroup for a few moms from church. We all ate lunch then let the kids play while us moms (tried to) talk about our Christmas plans, etc. It's fun b/c the moms are from different areas of Houston and different careers, etc. so there's lots of different viewpoints represented.

Then today we had our kids' Bible study over here. Me and 3 other moms have been doing "Children Desiring God" Bible study with our older kids, where one of us teaches the older kids a Bible lesson, including a memory verse, while a couple moms watch the little kids play and the host usually gets lunch together so we can all eat when Bible study is over. These friends are such a blessing and I am so thankful to be a part of each of these groups. It's just funny that it all happens at once. Now I should have a break from hosting anything for a couple months. I will just mooch off everyone else now.

Here's our Bible study group eating lunch.

Our Christmas cards should be out soon, but here is one of the pictures I took of the girls that didn't make it onto the card, but I think it's cute. Tatum looks unhappy, but really she's just saying "Cheese" as best she can for the pictures. She was trying so hard to be a good girl! Look at her pigtails! I hadn't tried pigtails before b/c I thought her hair was too short, but it worked, and it made her look like such a big girl! I used my "Hotsticks" from my high school years on Avery's hair and she loved her curls! They both looked so pretty.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Our holidays

Our thanksgiving was really fun. Brian's family in Midland all came to Houston this year. Brian's cousin has three kids that my girls adore. We adults played Trivial Pursuit one night and PictionaryMan the other night. I have always loved that about their family, that they play lots of games. I get really competitive with games, so I am glad to announce that my team (the girls) won PictionaryMan! Trivial Pursuit, not so much, I don't know much trivia about science, literature, geography, etc. Although, I can hold my own with sports & history.

Anyway, early Friday morning, several of us went midnight shopping at our new outlet mall, which was a crazy experience... literally thousands of people shopping at 1 am. Never again will I participate in that, but I am kinda glad I did it once just to have the experience. I did get a cute Kate Spade purse for 75% off, so it was worth it for me! We ate at Shogun that night (we were tired of left-overs) and Avery was mesmerized by the chef and all the chopping of food and huge fire on the grill right in front of us. We also got our house decorated for Christmas this past weekend! It makes me so happy to walk through our house and see all our pretty Christmas stuff out. I LOVE this time of year, and this year Christmas is even more exciting b/c we are expecting to meet our new baby girl in about ONE MONTH!!!

Okay, so here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving:

Everyone joked that this is what Brian & I will look like in about 10 years!! A bench full of kids!
Us with all the kids: McKenzie, Avery, Me, Kenadi, Brian, Tatum & Kade
Brian's fam: Brent, Steve, Brandon, Brian, Jenn, Sharla, Me, Avery & Tatum
(Next year we'll have two more kids in the picture... our baby girl and Brent & Jenn's first baby)
Avery & Kenadi
Tatum & Avery in their cute turkey shirts (thanks again, Jennifer!)!!

More random fun we've had lately:
My girls are big "Cars" fans, and my mom found these PJ's for them a few weeks ago. They ask to wear their "Lightning PJ's" almost every night now that it's gotten cold. Or for Tatum, her "yite-ying" PJ's.

My friend, Jennifer and her 3 precious boys and new baby girl came to visit before Thanksgiving and we had a great time letting all the kids play. I hadn't gotten to meet Kate yet, so I loved getting to hold her and look at her precious little face! I'm praying my girls can marry her boys someday... if arranged marriages were legal, I think we would already have it done. Since Kate is about 6 months older than our new baby girl, Jennifer brought me some of Kate's bows, shoes & clothes for our baby to wear. I am so excited b/c her stuff is so stinkin' cute!

Avery, Crew, Tatum, Brett, Parker & Kate
Crew & Tatum (future Mr. & Mrs. Kindle)

So we're back to work for 3 more weeks until Christmas break. I am feeling alright, although I am starting to have trouble getting comfortable at night. Baby girl is definitely making her presence known... she really likes to keep her foot lodged in my left rib. Her sisters did too. Don't know why that's such a comfortable spot for a foot. Sometimes it's hard to truly adore a baby in your womb when you can't picture what she will look like or anything specific about her, and quite frankly she makes your life pretty miserable at times; but when I look at Avery & Tatum, I am overwhelmed with how much I love them, and I know that I will feel the same about this baby when I meet her. Not that I don't love her now, I definitely do, but I am really getting excited for her to be done with my body and enter the world so we can both enjoy each other more, ya know?