Dear Everyone, I can't stand that the date says November 3rd for EVERY SINGLE POST. Therefore this blog is moving to mommybecoming.blogspot.com Hopefully we will not have this problem again. Unfortunatly I think you will need to re-sign up as "followers"
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
December 8. Fifteen weeks and 3 days, Moving
Baby is the size of an apple this week! If I were to shine a flashlight right on my belly, the baby would be able to tell the difference in light. Baby is also apparently breathing/swallowing amniotic fluid.
We moved last weekend. What a job! It went very smoothly for a move; I had everything packed except the cold goods and I had most everything stacked out in the garage. Nathan got home late Friday night and on Saturday morning the men came to move us. Our Pastor and his dad Terry came with their trucks, then Melissa’s husband Thomas and Marshall, another guy from church, came with Marshall’s truck and a trailer. They got everything moved over in one load, with the exception of our grill and Nathan’s motorcycle, which we’ll have to go back for. I spent Saturday and Sunday unpacking. Melissa was a huge help to me—she’s definitely a girl after my own heart in organization and cleanliness, among other things. I would say we’re about half way unpacked, but I have my entire kitchen and bathroom done, the living room mostly done, and the bedroom mostly done. What’s left is pretty much stuff like books (I have to wait to buy bookshelves), knickknacks, and various other random stuff.
And in answer to prayer, Marshall gave us a fridge, washer and dryer, and couch and loveseat. All we need (well, I’d like) a desk, dressers, and baby furniture. We also need some kind of outdoor dog run for Lily.
Melissa is staying with me for the week (Yay! Girl time!) and we’ll be able to spend time together, and hopefully do some more unpacking and make some Christmas cookies. As I mentioned, Nathan was home for the weekend which was incredibly helpful as it took the stress off me about “I’m not supposed to lift over X amount of weight but this is my crap so I should be helping…” In fact, he put me in time out at one point on Saturday morning, which I thought was funny. He stayed until after his jury duty on Monday morning, and left last night. His company was going to keep him gone until the 18th, but that’s when we’re supposed to leave for Ohio for Christmas with my family. Plus, our ultrasound is on the 17th and of course he really wants to go to that with me. I guess he called one of his bosses and they knocked down the number of stores he’s supposed to do from 4 to 2, which will put him home either this coming weekend or early next week. They’re not typically too flexible about work trips, but I’m reasonably sure that Nathan wasn’t being too flexible either. He’d already asked for the time off, and he really didn’t want to miss finding out what Baby is OR delaying our trip start. I’m so incredibly excited for Christmas and seeing my family! Mom says she’s got a lot of stuff planned and that I’m going to sleep all the way back to Texas. I told her that was fine since it’s a long trip!
Need blogger help
Can any of you guys who know blogspot well tell my why in the world every single post is dated November 3rd? And how I can fix it?
Moving!
Tomorrow we are moving!! I am so very excited and happy. We have been living for the past several months with Nathan’s sister and her husband. (We have not been mooching. We have always paid at least half of everything.) This is because we had decided at the beginning of the year to buy a house, and when we talked to a mortgage broker he told us we need to do credit repair on Nathan for 6 months. The lease on our rental house was up, and since Nathan’s sister was about to have a baby and needed financial help, it was decided that we’d live in their spare room and it would benefit both of us. Unfortunately, at the end of the sixth month period, we were 10, count them 10, points short of the desired credit score. “Wait another 3 months,” the mortgage broker said. “Let’s rent a place for a while,” I said. We decided to wait and stayed there for another three months. Then we had the credit checked again and we were 1 measly point under. At that point (mid-November) we decided to look for a place to rent . The living situation there had been becoming more and more difficult, and it truly was a “need” to find a rental house. The difficulty in finding a rental was that it had to be pet-friendly (We have a Basset hound and 2 cats), it had to have either a garage or a locking shed for Nathan’s motorcycle, and it had to be under a certain price.
As God does, he provided us with a place that meets all of those needs! We found a small brick home on the outskirts of town that has a one car garage (but is big enough for my car and Nathan’s motorcycle), is pet friendly, and has three bedrooms! Now, granted, they are small rooms but it is quite sufficient for us! We have a room for us, a room for baby, and a room for all of you who I know will want to come see us and our new little addition to the family! AND it is for a very low price, less than we were paying for the one bedroom house we lived in when we got married. We are moving in on Saturday. Unfortunately, on Monday night (or was it Tuesday?) Nathan got called to work to go to Arizona. We really need the money, so he had to go, which left it up to me to do the packing and figure out the move. For the THIRD TIME!!! I think he plans to go out of town whenever we have to move. So I have spent the past several days packing and trying not to pick up anything too heavy. Melissa is coming to stay with me tonight to help me finish up packing (or to sit around and look pretty depending on her level of pain—she just got a nasty tooth pulled!) and our pastor and his dad (and possibly other men) are coming Saturday morning with their trucks to help us move. Praise God for church family and for all of His provisions!
Here are a few prayer requests:
1) We need a fridge. For free. Please pray someone will be generous. I am really trusting God for this one, cause I’m out of pennies.
2) Please pray that many men with trucks will show up Saturday morning to move us
3) Please pray for my hips. I’ve had trouble with them hurting almost since I got pregnant, and all of the packing and carrying and overdoing it has left it extremely painful for me to walk.
4) We also need furniture (we have a bed!) and a washer and dryer. Obviously we can do craigslist or goodwill or garage sales, and I certainly intend to, but if you could pray that people could give us things that would be such a blessing. They don’t need to be new. A coat of paint is cheap and will work wonders.
As God does, he provided us with a place that meets all of those needs! We found a small brick home on the outskirts of town that has a one car garage (but is big enough for my car and Nathan’s motorcycle), is pet friendly, and has three bedrooms! Now, granted, they are small rooms but it is quite sufficient for us! We have a room for us, a room for baby, and a room for all of you who I know will want to come see us and our new little addition to the family! AND it is for a very low price, less than we were paying for the one bedroom house we lived in when we got married. We are moving in on Saturday. Unfortunately, on Monday night (or was it Tuesday?) Nathan got called to work to go to Arizona. We really need the money, so he had to go, which left it up to me to do the packing and figure out the move. For the THIRD TIME!!! I think he plans to go out of town whenever we have to move. So I have spent the past several days packing and trying not to pick up anything too heavy. Melissa is coming to stay with me tonight to help me finish up packing (or to sit around and look pretty depending on her level of pain—she just got a nasty tooth pulled!) and our pastor and his dad (and possibly other men) are coming Saturday morning with their trucks to help us move. Praise God for church family and for all of His provisions!
Here are a few prayer requests:
1) We need a fridge. For free. Please pray someone will be generous. I am really trusting God for this one, cause I’m out of pennies.
2) Please pray that many men with trucks will show up Saturday morning to move us
3) Please pray for my hips. I’ve had trouble with them hurting almost since I got pregnant, and all of the packing and carrying and overdoing it has left it extremely painful for me to walk.
4) We also need furniture (we have a bed!) and a washer and dryer. Obviously we can do craigslist or goodwill or garage sales, and I certainly intend to, but if you could pray that people could give us things that would be such a blessing. They don’t need to be new. A coat of paint is cheap and will work wonders.
"Things"--in no particular order
Things that make me cry
(And I’ll have you know that 4 months ago, if I’d caught myself crying at any of these things, I would have laughed at myself for being such a girl)
1) Love songs/sad songs/most songs on the country radio station
2) Commercials that picture a parent with their newborn (thanks a lot Huggies!)
3) Reading touching birth stories
4) Reading stories about miscarriages
5) Abortion pictures
6) Deliveries on TLC shows like “I didn’t know I was pregnant” and “Baby Story”, etc.
7) Pretty much anything that has to do with emotion between a mother and her baby.
8) Pretty much any Hallmark commercial
9) Thinking about anyone I love dying
10) Feeling overwhelmed
Things that make me really irritated
1) If I’ve gone too long without eating, I get irritable
2) Being woken up if I’ve already fallen asleep
3) People making my pregnancy into a competition—that doesn’t irritate me it makes me ANGRY!
4) Packing and moving without my husband’s help
Things that make me happy!
(This would be a veeeery long list so I’ll try to cull it down. There are many many things my husband does but I will just pick my favorites)
1) When Nathan puts his hands on my belly and says “Hi baby”
2) When Nathan makes supper because I’m really tired
3) When he says, “Baby, I’m sorry but you need to roll onto your side” (This could be irritating, except I asked him to tell me and he does it sweetly)
4) When Nathan asks me questions about what’s happening with the baby
5) People who give me their old baby stuff for free
6) Moving into a new place
7) Advice from WELL-MEANING people
8) Cloudy, rainy days
9) My church family
10) Nice cool weather
(And I’ll have you know that 4 months ago, if I’d caught myself crying at any of these things, I would have laughed at myself for being such a girl)
1) Love songs/sad songs/most songs on the country radio station
2) Commercials that picture a parent with their newborn (thanks a lot Huggies!)
3) Reading touching birth stories
4) Reading stories about miscarriages
5) Abortion pictures
6) Deliveries on TLC shows like “I didn’t know I was pregnant” and “Baby Story”, etc.
7) Pretty much anything that has to do with emotion between a mother and her baby.
8) Pretty much any Hallmark commercial
9) Thinking about anyone I love dying
10) Feeling overwhelmed
Things that make me really irritated
1) If I’ve gone too long without eating, I get irritable
2) Being woken up if I’ve already fallen asleep
3) People making my pregnancy into a competition—that doesn’t irritate me it makes me ANGRY!
4) Packing and moving without my husband’s help
Things that make me happy!
(This would be a veeeery long list so I’ll try to cull it down. There are many many things my husband does but I will just pick my favorites)
1) When Nathan puts his hands on my belly and says “Hi baby”
2) When Nathan makes supper because I’m really tired
3) When he says, “Baby, I’m sorry but you need to roll onto your side” (This could be irritating, except I asked him to tell me and he does it sweetly)
4) When Nathan asks me questions about what’s happening with the baby
5) People who give me their old baby stuff for free
6) Moving into a new place
7) Advice from WELL-MEANING people
8) Cloudy, rainy days
9) My church family
10) Nice cool weather
Fire
Growing up in the bush in Africa I saw a lot of fires. Bush fires that you work frantically to beat out, house fires with the roofs ablaze and people screaming at the top of their lungs. Fires from lightning, from a cooking fire, from a stray spark. My brother, when he was little, he was terrified of fire. If we watched a movie with a fire scene we had to turn the TV off and fast-forward so he wouldn’t see it. But I wasn’t scared of fire. Dad (and Smokey the Bear) taught us to respect it and to be careful with it, but not to be afraid of it.
When I was 19 I was working in Niger as a dorm parent and one afternoon when I was making an after school snack for the kids I was heating up oil. I turned to the other counter with my back to the oil for just a few seconds and by the time I turned back around, the oil was on fire. There was no fire blanket, and the fire extinguisher was wired closed (REALLY? Who does that?) By the time the fire got put out the above-stove microwave was melted and there was soot EVERYWHERE. I had a huge mess to clean up, and I learned a lesson about checking the fire extinguishers, but I still wasn’t really scared of fire.
In fact, I enjoy fire. I love sitting around a bonfire or a fireplace and watching the flames dance and tell stories. Some of my favorite memories revolve around a bonfire. I guess I didn’t realize that subconsciously one of those past experiences must’ve made an impact. A couple years ago I was watching a movie and fell asleep. Some time later I was woken by the sound of a fire alarm. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket, and was headed for the door when I realized my friends weren’t moving. I urged them to get out of the house and they looked puzzled until one of them told me it was just the movie. A few weeks ago Nathan was watching TV and I fell asleep and woke up to a flickering red light on the wall. Heart pounding and adrenalin racing I bolted upright just to realize that it was the colors from the TV. Then last night a sound woke me up around 4 or 5 and I saw the light of a flickering flame one the wall. Again, I got a rush of adrenaline and my heart started pounding—the fight or flight response—until I rolled over and saw that Nathan had come home from work, and he had his lit Zippo sitting on the nightstand as a light while he plugged his phone in. “Nathan!” I gasped, and rolled back over.
I don’t know if this keeps happening because a lot of the house fires that stand out the most clearly in my mind happened after dark, or if this is just my brain’s way of standing guard. Either way, I could sure do without the adrenaline rush in the middle of the night. I takes a while to get back to sleep!
When I was 19 I was working in Niger as a dorm parent and one afternoon when I was making an after school snack for the kids I was heating up oil. I turned to the other counter with my back to the oil for just a few seconds and by the time I turned back around, the oil was on fire. There was no fire blanket, and the fire extinguisher was wired closed (REALLY? Who does that?) By the time the fire got put out the above-stove microwave was melted and there was soot EVERYWHERE. I had a huge mess to clean up, and I learned a lesson about checking the fire extinguishers, but I still wasn’t really scared of fire.
In fact, I enjoy fire. I love sitting around a bonfire or a fireplace and watching the flames dance and tell stories. Some of my favorite memories revolve around a bonfire. I guess I didn’t realize that subconsciously one of those past experiences must’ve made an impact. A couple years ago I was watching a movie and fell asleep. Some time later I was woken by the sound of a fire alarm. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket, and was headed for the door when I realized my friends weren’t moving. I urged them to get out of the house and they looked puzzled until one of them told me it was just the movie. A few weeks ago Nathan was watching TV and I fell asleep and woke up to a flickering red light on the wall. Heart pounding and adrenalin racing I bolted upright just to realize that it was the colors from the TV. Then last night a sound woke me up around 4 or 5 and I saw the light of a flickering flame one the wall. Again, I got a rush of adrenaline and my heart started pounding—the fight or flight response—until I rolled over and saw that Nathan had come home from work, and he had his lit Zippo sitting on the nightstand as a light while he plugged his phone in. “Nathan!” I gasped, and rolled back over.
I don’t know if this keeps happening because a lot of the house fires that stand out the most clearly in my mind happened after dark, or if this is just my brain’s way of standing guard. Either way, I could sure do without the adrenaline rush in the middle of the night. I takes a while to get back to sleep!
14 weeks, 2 days
Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.
We had quite an eventful weekend. We stayed with our friends Melissa and Thomas from Wednesday night until Friday afternoon. Thursday Melissa and I went to help with a Thanksgiving dinner the church was putting on for the homeless, but basically our entire congregation was there. Which is great, but sometimes too many hands just makes more mess. We stayed for about 10 minutes and then left. I think they should’ve had people sign up for shifts, rather than all show up at once. So we went home and got our dinner started, then went down the road to Melissa’s Grandparents house. They had some family drama, but I told Melissa that we were avoiding ours this year and we’d much rather watch theirs! We stayed for an hour or two and then went back to their place. We had our dinner late in the evening and Melissa’s mom and her boyfriend came over. It was very nice and relaxing.
Friday I had to work but my boss let me leave early. I went back to M&T’s and we hung out for a while, then Nathan and I packed up our stuff and took Lily (our basset hound) back to our house. Then we met up with M&T and went to the big Christmas parade in downtown Fort Worth! It’s an awesome parade—definitely the biggest this small town girl has ever seen! After the parade they light a ginormous Christmas tree right in the middle of the city. We received an unexpected blessing in the way of 4 tickets to sit! The planners or whoever line the streets with seats but you have to pay to sit in them—which is expensive! But this lady was driving along next to us and just offered us tickets, and she had four so we could all sit! How cool is that? (Disclaimer: I did not take these photos. I found them on the internet--thanks Mr. G.oogle!)
Saturday we went out to Nathan’s parents house so he could work on his truck. He wanted to go back out there Sunday after church but it was raining, so we went back to the house and sat around for the rest of the day. And I found out that Mellissa and Thomas are moving away.
Friday I had to work but my boss let me leave early. I went back to M&T’s and we hung out for a while, then Nathan and I packed up our stuff and took Lily (our basset hound) back to our house. Then we met up with M&T and went to the big Christmas parade in downtown Fort Worth! It’s an awesome parade—definitely the biggest this small town girl has ever seen! After the parade they light a ginormous Christmas tree right in the middle of the city. We received an unexpected blessing in the way of 4 tickets to sit! The planners or whoever line the streets with seats but you have to pay to sit in them—which is expensive! But this lady was driving along next to us and just offered us tickets, and she had four so we could all sit! How cool is that? (Disclaimer: I did not take these photos. I found them on the internet--thanks Mr. G.oogle!)
Saturday we went out to Nathan’s parents house so he could work on his truck. He wanted to go back out there Sunday after church but it was raining, so we went back to the house and sat around for the rest of the day. And I found out that Mellissa and Thomas are moving away.
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