It's a .....

BOY! We're having a little baby boy! We have officially become members of the boy club. I know everyone was thinking that we were having a girl because of the boy trend we've had over the past couple of years, but it looks like we're adding another boy to the nursery at Rich Fork. I could not be any more excited. Being in that ultrasound room was so surreal. I just kept looking at Matt in amazement. Our little boy was was sweet on the video the doctor made for us we could see him moving around, opening his mouth, sucking on his thumb and waving at us. I couldn't believe that we were actually meeting our child. I've had an overwelming feeling of gratefulness ever since we left the doctor yesterday morning. This is the child that God has put in our care, that He specifically made for Matt and I to love on this earth.

Besides extreme gratefulness, other thoughts have popped in my head since yesterday. First, how could anyone not believe in God if they've ever experience an ultrasound? Which goes along with, how can people say that a baby is not a human being at that point? It makes no sense, we can see it with our eyes. My second thought, will I be a good mom to our little boy? Lately I've felt bombarded with so many different decisions to made before he's even born, such as, what pediatrics to use, and spacing out shots. Am I qualified to makes these decisions? Whew, sometimes the feeling of inadequacy is too much.

It's a good thing that God didn't ask us to do this whole parent thing on our own. Besides having Him, which is most important, he has given me an awesome family and friends who are here to walk with me every step of the way. Another thing to be grateful for.

I'll try in the next week to post some pictures and videos of our day at the doctor.

I'm Back!

Sorry for my delay in post. I haven't had much energy lately. I'm waiting for that burst of energy everyone keeps telling me you get in your 2nd trimester. For now Mr. Energy is no where to be found. I keep thinking that I need to take full advantage of all the naps and lying around because each will be hard to come by in a few more months.

Anyways, I'm 14 weeks now and Matt and I went to the doctor this past Thursday to hear the baby's heart beat for the first time. I can't even explain how incredibly awesome it was to hear our child's heartbeat. It made it so much more real to me. It was crazy hearing my own slow heartbeat and then seconds later hearing another heartbeat much faster than mine coming from inside me. After our visit I kept thinking, how can people not believe in God? For me it seems so easy, let's take every unbeliever into an OBGYN and let them hear a baby's heart beat and see an ultrasound. That would work right? People would surly come to Christ right there in the doctor's office. If only it was that easy.

This summer I've truly been challenged by our amazing teenagers. One word to describe the youth this summer would be "servants." This hasn't been a one week camp summer. We have many of our youth still serving at certain camp sites and other youth looking for more opportunities to serve. I'm so proud!!! With that being said, I now want to find different capacities to reach out and love people. This summer has made me look at situations differently to see what ways I can love others. I'm so excited to see what else our youth will challenge us as youth workers with next.

Now that I got all the mushy gushy stuff out, here is a picture of my small baby bump. You might have to squint.

What you do...

when your husband's in Romania. If you've visited Jessica's blog today you probably saw the craziness that occurred last night. The craziest part about these videos is that it all occurred before 1:00am. I hope you enjoy.






Watch out though we're like Walt Disney you never know when we'll open up the vault and bring out another installment.

Hormones On The Loose

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, but I've been a little distracted with Matt leaving for Romania with the youth. Anyone who knows me knows that I am petrified of flying and even more scared of people I love (i.e. Matt) flying, especially LONG distances. Before Matt left the pregnancy hormones were in full gear. Everything Matt said triggered my tear ducts. The day before Matt left we decided to spend the whole day together cuddling on the couch and watching movies. Actually, we cuddled for like 30 minutes and the rest of the time we set on opposite sides of the couch. We all know Matt's not the cuddling kind. Anyways, we ended up watching a movie about a guy who started selling drugs to support his family, but his plan backfired because he ended up going to jail for life. His daughter was so mad at him that she never came to visit him. I know it was the "feel good" movie of the year...not. Well after the movie was over we both felt very uplifted and took a time out on the movie watching. About five minutes later I look over at Matt with worry in my eyes and ask with all seriousness, "Have you ever thought about selling drugs?" He looks at me and says, "Seriously?" I precede to go into a rant about how I never won't him to feel that he has to sell drugs to make money for us. By this point I'm crying pretty hard and finally get him to promise me that he'll never sell drugs. It's crazy because during our conversation I remember thinking "I'm being completely rational. This is a very serious concern. This could happen." About an hour later I finally realize that I was being pretty ridiculous and Matt and I had a good laugh about it.

So, that's my funny story for the week. I'm doing better a lot better than I thought with Matt being gone. I've realized that I have the most important job of all and that's praying for him and the group and the lives that they will touch. I know that he is where God wants him to be right now and I'm so proud of him for doing so. Another thing that has been so evident in just the couple days he's been gone is that I have some AMAZING friends. I don't show or tell them enough how much they mean to me. For example, on Saturday I had a yard sale with my family. It wasn't a big deal, it was just something to distract me, get junk out of my house and of course make some extra cash. During the sale Sarah stopped by to give me some much needed comedy relief, which doesn't seem big but I think she knew it was something I really needed. A couple of hours later Amy calls and leaves a me message telling me that she was thinking about me and wanted to see how I was doing. It was a simple message, but much needed. About 30 minutes later Jessica calls to see how the sale went. All three of these incidents got me thinking about how incredibly blessed I am. God definitely knew what He was doing when He put my friends in my life. I think we all compliment each other so well and in so many different ways. My prayer is that I'm am able to be the kind of friend they are to me.

Sushi...NEVER again!

Well, my streak has been broken. Until last night I had gone a whole 5 days with out visiting the porcelain throne. I had actually felt like doing more than watching Saved By the Bell reruns and checking everyone's blogs. So yesterday I started feeling a little brave. I hadn't had sushi in months and for some reason thought that yesterday would be a perfect day to have it. My dear in-laws picked up the sushi for us and brought it to the house. Oh it was so so yummy going down. (For all of you who are worried, the sushi I eat is not raw. No worries. I got it under control.)

while I was finishing my last piece of sushi that feeling hit the back of my throat. You know the feeling I'm talking about. It's when you're in mid chew and you start to feel like you might not be able to get the rest of the bite down, so you chew and swallow as fast as you can in hopes that you've beating the monster. Well, I did that and for a while I felt like everything was going to be okay.

About 2 hours later I had a bad headache and I was feeling very flushed. Everything in me was saying "Don't do it you'll break your streak!" Moments later I was paying homage to my friends toilet. If anyone ever wanted to know what the most disgusting thing to get sick on is, I can first hand tell you that it's sushi. Sushi use to be one of my favorite foods, but now I don't think I EVER want it again. Take my advice if there's a chance you could get sick or you have been sick, stay as far away from sushi as you can.