Baby Shower

When we went home in March, my sisters threw me a baby shower.  It was really fun.  I loved having the chance to spend a few hours that afternoon with friends and family.  My friend Cathy Breslow, who was the photographer at our wedding, took photos, and I don't have those yet, but I wanted to share this photo of the cake my sister made (with the help of her husband).

Isn't it adorable?  Every detail of it is solid cake deliciousness.  I'm glad I had this shower before I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes!  And how cute is the polka dot table cloth underneath it?  I had an awesome time, everything looked wonderful, and we got a lot of great stuff for Oliver.  Tons of cute outfits I can't wait to put him in.

When the photos come, I'll post some and share some highlights!

So many things!

Goodness, so many things have been taking place, and I have not taken the time to write about them here!  It's strange how quickly life gets busy without you even realizing it.  It's already the second week of April, which means Glen will be done with his semester in about 4 weeks, will (hopefully) start to work full time, and then I can either scale my work hours waaay back, or stop working altogether.  It would be nice to take this summer easy, get ready for baby, and other things coming up...hence the so many things to write about.  I'm not going to do one giant post, though.  I'm going to break it up into a few posts. 

We went home the last couple weeks of March, and my sisters threw me an awesome baby shower.  We came home and found out the full time job Glen was supposed to have might not actually be, so we've been praying through that and waiting to see what happens.  I found out last week that I have gestational diabetes, which is why it would be good to take it easy this summer, since I'll have more doctor's appointments than other women in their third trimester.  And speaking of which, I'm only a week and a half away from my third trimester!  This pregnancy has gone by pretty fast, and has been fairly easy.  I feel so blessed!  The last thing I want to write about is the fact that Glen and I have decided to move back to California in August, after Oliver is born.

Like I said...lots of changes have taken place and are on the horizon.  But as a good friend reminded us the other night at dinner, even though we have so many new cool things and kind of scary things going on and in our future, the one thing we are certain of is who we are in Christ and that He is Lord and center of our lives.  That's what matters, and that's what we cling to. 

Tiny Dancer

 Baby, 23 Weeks



Maybe it's bad that I used an Elton John song to describe Oliver's movements, but I feel like this kid is starting an all day all night dance party!  I love feeling him move, but it never ceases to stop me in my tracks and think, "Holy cow, there is a human inside of me!"  This thought is often followed with, "Holy cow, this human is going to have to come out eventually!"  Yikes. Honestly though, I can't wait to see Oliver in person.  I already think he's so precious, how amazing will it be to see his little eyes gaze up at me?  Also, I bought a few clothing items for him, I can't wait to see the little chubs in his threads. 

Speaking of his movements and development, here's an article filled with amazing facts about the development of a baby.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Necessities

We've gone to Target a couple times over the last month or so to register for baby goodies. It was so fun to spend a couple of hours picking out "necessities" for Oliver. I have no idea whether I chose the "best" brands of bottles, pacifiers or diapers, or if I registered for enough bibs or blankies. I used to get a little caught up in all of that stuff (choosing the "right" items), but I'm beginning to realize that it doesn't really matter. Everything will be fine, and we'll have everything we need to take care of our little boy. All we really need is love, right?

A beard, a boy and a cake.

The Beard: I started growing a beard a while ago, around the beginning of November. I have wanted to grow a large beard for a while but I've never been able to do so. Usually I'll get about a month and a half or so into the process and I'll start playing with it and pulling on it and it'll start irritating my face. This ends up making me get tired of the beard and then shave it off. So far I've made it almost 4 months with this beard, though. At first it was just something I decided to do - Wendy allowed me to go for it, so I did. But I realized a few weeks ago that I started growing the beard around the time that we found out that Wendy was pregnant, so I have decided that I am going to keep the beard until the baby is born. So... if I make it the whole time, I will have had the beard for as long as we knew about the baby.


The Boy: Speaking about the baby - which is what this blog is about after all - we found out on Tuesday that we are going to have a boy. We are both very excited about this. However, it was a little more exciting for Wendy. Let me tell you why. Before we had our appointment Wendy and I decided to make a little wager about what the baby is. She thought it was going to be a boy, because most of the people she knows who have had or are having a baby produced a boy. Up until about a week and a half ago I didn't have a feeling one way or the other as to what we were going to have. Then I realized that we had pretty much selected a boy's name but not really a girl's name, so I decided that meant we were going to have a girl. And so, Wendy was more excited than me because not only did she get to know what we're gonna have, but she was also right. She was also excited because she doesn't like not knowing things, so it had been killing her to not know what the baby was. And now she gets to plan, and she likes planning.














The Cake: Part of me losing meant that I had to make Wendy a cake... from scratch. She was very excited about this - she loves cake and apparently it had kind of been a dream of hers to have her husband make her a cake. I didn't mind doing it - I had lost the wager after all, but I also kinda like cooking, and I love my wife. It took forever, though! I am very methodical, which often just ends up meaning that I do things slowly. I also had the great idea of trying to make a fudge icing rather than butter cream because I knew that she likes fudge icing sometimes. Well, that great idea didn't end up working out as well as I had hoped it would. I forgot to check the recipe to see what kind of cake the recipe could frost, so I didn't make enough. And it ended up not turning out super well. Fortunately Wendy has a great recipe for vanilla butter cream, though, so I was able to put the fudge in between the two layers of the cake and then I put the butter cream on the rest of the cake. Everything turned out ok, but I don't know that I'll ever make another cake from scratch, it was very time consuming and messy.


















Well, that's about all for now - just waiting for and looking forward to meeting our son.

We're Going to Have a Boy!

We had our big ultrasound on Tuesday!  My due date was pushed up three days, which makes me 20 weeks, 1 day as of today.  Even more importantly than the gender of our baby, is that he is healthy and everything in me that he needs is healthy.  I want to be a good host to our little boy, even though I'm pretty sure he's going to leave his hotel room trashed when he enters the world.  I keep reading things that say I'll never feel normal again.  I suppose I will have new "normal".  And it will be difficult and weird adjusting to it at times, but so wonderful because I'll have little Oliver and his daddy Glen by my side.  Oh yeah, we decided to name him Oliver.  My wonderful husband is very analytical and deliberative, so I told him he can't over-think the name Oliver cause then he'll hate it, kind of like when you think a word over and over in your brain and it no longer sounds like an actual word.  But we do think Oliver is a cute name, and I don't believe I know any Olivers right now.  Except mine.  He's still a mystery in many ways, but I'm slowly getting to know him with each ultrasound, each movement, each growth spurt.  And I am in love.

A Wonderful Feeling

This last week has marked a fun milestone:  

I'm beginning to feel the baby move!

It's so fun to lay still and spend time focusing on the baby each day, giving every bit of my attention to waiting for a little bit of movement inside of me. My doctor suggested laying on my side in a quiet room, after I had something really cold to drink, and pressing my hands on my belly.  Some people describe it as feeling like when you have butterflies in your stomach.  I guess it is kind of a fluttering sensation, but it's lower than your stomach (or at least it is for me right now, until the baby gets bigger).  It feels so wonderful to know that even of I can't see our baby or hold it and shower it with kisses, we can still bond and share special moments together.  Of course, all our little one knows is that it's floating around and suddenly having joints to move.  But someday s/he will know that it was I who carried them every day, thought about them all day and every night, prayed for their development in this critical time and spent hours dreaming of who they will be, what they will look like, what their hobbies/dreams/quirks might be. 

Glen and I pray for the baby's spiritual life once s/he is born.  We long for our children to come to know and love the Lord at a young age and grow to have a heart that beats for Him.  We pray that we will be parents who model Christ's love, not merely telling our child to obey Christ and love Him, but showing him/her what that looks like through our own lives.  What a huge and humbling responsibility the Lord is giving us! 

Pray with us, please, as we prepare for this new season of our lives!