Haircuts, Class, and a Tummy Pic...

I hope that all of you have had a nice week so far.

I wanted to ask all of you to be praying for a friend of mine, Brandi. Her blog is here. She was diagnosed with brain cancer a couple of weeks ago and she has two kiddos under 3. Please be praying for her and her family.

I managed to get my DH to take a tummy picture for me last Friday. Here is the 37 week "bump" picture. You will have to overlook the tired circles around my eyes.I am getting excited. My mom will be traveling out on Saturday and we will have a few days to hang out before the baby gets here.

The house is about as ready as it can be. If you know me at all, you know that I had to do some sort of switch-a-roo with the house to accommodate our growing little family. I need to take some pictures of the finished products. We no longer have an office/catch all room. It has been turned into the play room. Maybe I can get a picture of the room before it gets played in the morning.

Yesterday was hair cutting day in our household. I have been giving Judah minor haircuts since December, keeping his little hairs from looking too shaggy in the back and over his ears. But, I have never cut my DH's hair until last night. I think it turned out pretty good. In fact, I think I did better than the girl that cut his hair at Master Cuts last time. Here are my handsome fellows.
We enrolled Judah in a toddler-parent music class for a few weeks this summer. Today was his first class. He was pretty shy the whole time and pretty much just wanted to sit in my lap. Hopefully next week he will be a little more comfortable with the new surroundings.
After his class, we went on a mommy-son lunch date to a sandwich shop a few doors down and split a pastrami sandwich. Here we are on the way to his class. Hope you have a great day!

Speechless...

So I mentioned in my Time Flies post about this baby being an amazing answer to prayer. I also mentioned that I had so much more that I wanted to share about this. Well, I didn't want the opportunity or the time to share this to go by. So, here it is.

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time or have read many of my previous posts, you will know that we had a hard time getting pregnant with Judah.

In the first year of our marriage, I had a miscarriage. This happening completely shook my world. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and I never imagined that becoming a mom would be an issue. Finding my beloved may have required waiting on God, but having to trust God about becoming a mom never even entered my head. Over the next 2 1/2 years, I had to learn to trust God with the family I always dreamed of having. I had to daily give God my anxietyabout not only the question of whether or not we would ever get pregnant again; but also, whether or not I could manage to not miscarry once I was pregnant. My DH and I prayed/pleaded with God to bless us with a child. We were/are open to adoption, but financially there was no way for that to happen without God stepping in.

In February 2009, we found out that we were expecting a baby. I had a great deal of complications my first trimester and daily feared that I had lost/was losing my precious little one. After yet more praying and pleading to God to preserve the little life that He had created, Judah was born on October 9, 2009. His name (meaning "praise") came from Leah's declaration when she names her son Judah.

My Bible verse for Judah is:

"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to Him." ~1 Samuel 1:27

Within six months of Judah being born, my DH and I started talking about what spacing would be good for our next child. We knew that it was in God's hands, but we still wanted to talk about it. We knew that it had taken a while for us to get pregnant with Judah and almost jokingly said that it would be great if they were anywhere close to two years apart. We began praying that God would bless our family as He saw fit and we asked for the faith to trust Him in it. We decided not to keep track of days on the calendar, as anyone who has been classified as "trying to conceive" knows gets ingrained in your head. We just wanted to enjoy the time we had been given with Judah and each other and not fret about when our next child would arrive.

Then in mid-October my DH went out of town for the weekend for his job. Judah and I went to Pei Wei for lunch and afterward I got a few waves of nausea. I thought, "Huh, that's funny; I wonder if I might be pregnant." That night my DH got home and the next morning I decided to take a pregnancy test. To my surprise a second line appeared. I ambushed my DH in the hallway with the test. (I couldn't contain myself to let him know the good news in any other way. He didn't even know I was taking a test.)

We prayed and thanked the Lord for His bestowing of another little blessing to join our family. It was some time later, maybe mid-December that Psalm 37:4 came to me.

"Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart." ~Psalm 37:4

What struck me to be so amazing was that God had given my DH and I what we had wanted most but were too humbled by His blessing of Judah to ask for. We had asked for a child and God had given us Judah. We wanted him to have a sibling close in age but we also just wanted our family to be the size that God wanted it to be. We wanted to trust Him in what He had in store for us and not take for granted all that He had already given us. Little did we know that He would let our children be 20 1/2 months apart, just like we had hoped.

Easter 2011 - 30 weeks

Still Here...

Believe it or not, I am still here. My computer time may not be, but I am definitely still here.

Thanks to all of you for the congratulations on the news of our soon-to-be-here little one. We are getting very excited and slightly nervous about making the one to two kiddo jump. I am equipped with double strollers, a Moby wrap, a mini van, family support, and God's help; so, I know we will transition just fine.

I am 37 weeks today. We have been doing the same Neonatal Stress Tests that we had to do with Judah. So far, everything is going great. I will try to get a picture of my baby "bump" when I am not in my pj's. I haven't been as good about taking regular belly pictures this time around. I just keep forgetting.

Judah is turning into quite a big boy. He is one busy boy and I takes most of my energy just to keep up with him. Most of the pictures I take of him these days are a blur because he is constantly moving.

Time Flies...

I've been away a long time, way too long in fact. I just can't believe that we are almost through with January 2011! Can you???

Things have been really hopping around here. I am finding myself trying to re-adjust daily life and keeping priorities in order with every new phase Judah comes to. The last big change was Judah's complete mobility. This happened at the beginning of September along with the absence of myself on my own blog.

So, all of the busyness of the last several months includes trying to keep up with everyday life, enjoying each day we have as a family, Judah turning ONE, taking a trip to Washington D.C., a trip to Florida for the holidays, a trip to San Antonio, a trip to Ft. Worth, Judah's first two molars, and the fabulous news that... ...God is blessing our family with a new little blessing in late June/early July. This is just an amazing answer to prayer for us. (I have so much more about this that I want to share.)

I am hoping that I will have the chance to blog a little more often, now that the holiday traveling is over with and we are starting to get into the groove of things again. I so want to catch up on your blogs and see what you have been up to.

Catching Up...

I am sorry that I have been gone from the blog for the couple of months or so. Things have been pretty busy around here. Judah is now completely mobile and takes only one nap a day, so the little bit of down time I did have has shrunk drastically. We have been really busy with Judah's party preparations, my DH traveling for work a few weekends, getting ready to a garage sale, all piled up on top of the busyness of everyday life.

I have several different things that I want to post about and some new pictures to post as well.

I can't believe that November is already here. For those of you that know how much I like to decorate for fall, things have been so crazy I haven't even gotten to start decorating yet.

Tolerable Weather and a Nice Size To-Do List...

First of all, do these lashes not make you jealous? I mean, I wish mine looked like that. Anyway.

I can tell that fall is making its way to us. It was just something in the way that the sunlight twinkled in through the leaves this afternoon. As I sat in the car this afternoon as Judah napped and I made my weekly to-do list, I almost thought I felt a crisp, fall breeze. In truth, it was only my imagination and excitement from not having triple digit temperatures this week. We've just had mid to high 90's and it feels so great comparatively.

The "cooler" temperatures that we have had this week brought Judah and I outdoors twice this week. On Monday afternoon I had Judah's monthly photo shoot, 11 month one, and I couldn't get him to smile. He was in a very serious and contemplative mood. Nothing I did, said, or sang would even make the corners of his mouth turn up the slightest bit.
This afternoon, we once again found ourselves outside, this time outside my DH's work. We walked around and then found a nice patch of grass to play on. Judah is very interested in crawling around in the grass and pulling at the blades. I was able to get a couple of non-serious baby pictures then.
I have a pretty large to-do list going on. On top of the list is putting away the mountain of clean, folded laundry in the laundry room that is teetering on the verge of a chaotic avalanche. We are taking a short trip to Washington DC over Labor Day weekend (my DH is going for work and Judah and I are tagging along), so I am starting on the whole packing process and have implemented the "if you want to wear it on the trip then don't wear it" statute. I have been working on a few sewing projects for Judah that I need to have done by his first birthday. I have some blogging that I want to catch up on as well.
So, now I am off to bed so tomorrow is productive and I can keep up with my busy little fellow.

Showing Some School Spirit...

This past weekend, we had some of my DH's students over for dinner and dessert. We had 15 students over, which made our little house extremely cozy. However, it was fun having them over and getting to meet some of the students my DH teaches.
All but two of the students we had over are freshman. It was funny because for the first time in my life, I introduced myself as "Mrs. _____". I think I truly felt "old" for the first time when I was introducing myself to all of these college freshman.

So in keeping with school spirit, I made some ribbons to go around my drink bucket and tried to make the table look festive without spending a bunch of money.

For dessert I we had a Brownie-Strawberry Triffle, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, and some fruit. The school provided Lasagna, Salad, and Breadsticks.
I couldn't believe it, but of the 4 dozen cookies I made only four were eaten and we had 1/4 of the triffle left. I also bought 4 12-packs of various soda, a 12-pack of water, and a couple of containers of Simply Lemonade. Hardly any of the sodas were drank, 1/4 of the lemonade was left, and all but 4 of the waters were drank. I was worried about having enough (especially considering there were 18 year old guys there, but apparently I was wrong.

Good thing we are going to be LIFE Group hosts for church and we can use up the sodas.

Three Quarters of the Way to One...

Yesterday, Judah had his 9 month check-up with the pediatrician. He was so good while we waited for the doctor and he "walked" over to the nurse when she was asking the routine questions.
Judah now weighs 24 pounds and is 30 inches long. He is in the 90th percentile in both weight and height. What is kinda' funny is the fact that Judah loves his veggies and usually acts like you've given him a lemon when we try to give him fruit. The doctor said he has heard that conversation so many time but under opposite terms. My DH said that Judah will be the most popular child in the lunch room saying "I'll trade you my cookies for your broccoli". Judah scored really well in the development test we did. He is right on track, which translates into Judah being interested in everything around him and now having the capabilities to try to check said items out. At least the falling over has slowed down ever so slightly.

I just can't believe my precious boy is 9 months already.

Tubes and Tunnels...

On Monday evening after dinner, we walked over to the playground by our house. Judah did his best to climb around.He tried out the tube slide and the tunnel tube. He was a big fan of the latter and he crawled back and forth from my DH to me and back again.
When Judah would get near the end of the tube, he would start holding one of his hands up for me to hold and then he would stand up as he exited the tube.
We also walked on the moving bridge thing (I am not sure what the real name of it was). Judah thought that it was fun and managed to keep his balance pretty well, holding on to my fingers of course. I can't believe how big he is getting.It was so nice to be out is the fresh air, even if it was a more than a little warm.

A Zoo Day...

On Sunday, we went for a family outing to the zoo.

It was extremely hot out, even though we tried to get there before the hottest part of the day. Here I am trying to bring sunhats back into style and avoiding a sunburn at the same time.
We think that the fish are Judah's favorite part of the zoo. He tends to recognize them and they manage to hold his attention the best.
We also figured out that Judah can last about 1/2 of the zoo. Before we were finished, he was zonked out.Matt and I did manage to get a pretty good self-portrait while the little man was napping though.