Week 11--We have a baby Lime! And other weekly updates...

I get all these fun emails now from various pregnancy sites, letting me know (mostly) helpful hints on what I might be experiencing as pregnancy progresses, but my favorite emails are the ones that show up every Friday morning (when we start a new week in this little one's life). These emails let me know how big our lil munchkin is, and what he or she is working on developing this week. It is CRAZY to think about all that is happening inside me! My favorite email comes with a comparison to a piece of produce, letting me know just how big baby is, and this week we've made it to the lime stage! All the other fruits up until now haven't seemed that significant--a grape, a kumquat (whatever that is), a blueberry, but a lime? That feels a bit more real to me--that's a decent sized piece of fruit! This week baby is busy getting his hair follicles, nail beds for those cute little fingernails I'm told I'll hate cutting, and can actually somersault around in there! I can't feel anything yet, but that just sounds impressive to me! This little munchkin is wearing me out, I still can't make it through a day without napping, but I can't complain. I'm not working, so I can take naps when I need to, and for the first time in my life I seriously don't care if the house isn't spotless. (Most days, some days I get a second wind and can't stand the dust!) I'm doing my best to eat healthy baby-growing food...but for some reason I want popcorn. With butter. Every day. And salads (my normal favorite food) don't taste as good anymore. Maybe the fruit smoothies balance the butter out? I can hope! I have definitely gained weight, but am grateful my "normal" clothes still fit...the world of maternity clothes sounds a bit overwhelming right now...

In other news, we had a great weekend with my husband's sister and her four kids who stopped by for 4 days. We showed them a bit of Seattle, played games, watched movies, and napped (they were jet lagged coming from Japan, so I wasn't the only one napping every afternoon!)

We're still reeling a bit from what happened at the church. I think this is going to take awhile to heal from. We're hurt and angry, mostly at how our senior pastor chose to handle things, and we've been hearing from several congregation members who are beside themselves with anger on our behalf. One family told us they weren't going back to church yet, they were too mad to sit there and listen to our pastor preach. We never wanted to cause drama here and we aren't sure what to do with everything. We are walking away with our heads held high though. We were faithful to everything we said we wanted to do in our interview, and we can't control the fact that apparently what we said we wanted to do isn't actually what this congregation was ready for. He's been circulating his resume and cover letter again, and has already had 2 phone interviews with two different churches. One of these churches looks and sounds like an absolute dream church for us. They talked to him for awhile, hung up, and an hour later the senior pastor called back and said they wanted to fly him in this coming weekend for an in person interview. Prayers for him this weekend would be much appreciated! We're trying not to get our hopes up, but realistically we haven't seen anything else out there that we're this excited about. I actually think we feel more excited about this potential church than we ever did about our Seattle church.

In the meantime we've been so grateful to have a chance to worship at Bethany, my beloved church here in Seattle. The music, the preaching, the praying, the people who have heard what we've been through and have reached out with hugs and prayers, all have been washing over our dry, thirsty, hurting souls like refreshing rain. I can't even begin to communicate how hard it was for me to worship at this church we've been part of. Being able to be at Bethany again has been amazing.

Well, it's my first night alone for the week. My husband is helping out with Bethany's high school mission trip this week--they needed another male leader at the last minute to help with one of my best friend's groups of students, and when the youth director heard he was all of a sudden available he grabbed him! This weekend is the big interview, so I have quite a few evenings alone on my hands. Tonight's plan? A warm bath, The Bachelorette, and popcorn. With butter.

Meet our Lil Hamster!

If you are friends with us on Facebook you know it's official! We're going to be parents! We're super excited to introduce you all to our little munchkin--who for now, goes by either "Baby K" or "the hamster." We showed the ultra sound photo to a friend of ours from church and she said "oh!! I'm so glad you guys are having a little hamster!" The name kind of stuck--especially with my husband :) So at least until we find out what we're having (mid-August sometime) "the hamster" will suffice! Baby will be here to meet all of you in person mid-January--hopefully after all the holidays are over!

We were planning on waiting another week or two to make our announcement, but on Wednesday of last week my husband was let go from the church we've been serving at. It's a long story, but it wasn't a good fit from the beginning. We're mostly relieved to be finished there, although we are very hurt and angry about how the end of our time there came about. We're back to wondering what in the world is next for us--will we be moving again? Will we be able to stay here? What's next? At midnight Wednesday night we couldn't sleep, and felt like doing something spontaneous and maybe a teensy bit spiteful. We wanted to show the church that they couldn't take away our joy we were experiencing last week after hearing our baby's heart beat for the first time. So we decided to post our news to facebook right then. Waking up to congratulatory comments was much better than waking up to comments about loosing a job! So, it should be a crazy year as we figure all this out (prayers would be appreciated, please!) but for now, I thought I'd share a few fun moments since discovering I was pregnant.

I found out I was expecting Baby on May 5th, and told my husband that evening. He was shocked to say the least, and my favorite moment was when he looked at me and said "wait, so you're like 4 weeks along ALREADY? That means there's only 36 left! I need a beer...." I felt a little bad about the timing. His parents arrived about two hours after I told him for and I swore him to secrecy for the weekend. It was so early, I wasn't ready to tell people, I wanted to visit a doctor and make sure things looked okay, and so many miscarriages happen so early on I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up. I'm sure they were wondering why their wine-loving daughter in law all of a sudden refused to order anything but sprite when we went out to dinner!

Thankfully I cannot complain about this pregnancy at all. Other than being exceptionally more tired than normal (which I am told is the most common first trimester side effect) I haven't been sick at all. I nap every day (or try to), and generally am falling asleep on the couch by 10 PM but otherwise I can't complain. No baby bump yet, but I can feel where baby's growing when I push on my stomach, which is a very cool feeling :)

I have definitely been wanting a baby for awhile now, but for the first several weeks it didn't feel real at all. Other than all of a sudden wanting to list napping as my new favorite past time, I didn't feel any different, and life at the church was so beyond stressful we couldn't really think about anything else. We both confessed to one another that we were even wondering if this baby would make it past the 1st trimester--perhaps God would realize this stressful season of life wasn't the right time to give us a child. What a horrible thing to say out loud, but we both admitted to thinking this way. (Now we don't have a stressful job, but the flip side is we don't have any job!) I didn't feel any attachment at all to this being inside of me, even though the pregnancy books were describing to me all the crazy things happening in this little being from the very early weeks. Then, one day, in the middle of week 8 for me, I was walking home from Target and it hit me, strongly, how badly I wanted this baby to be real. I don't know that you could say I was overcome with love for this baby I don't know yet, and haven't felt yet, but I was hit with the realization that this was OUR baby, and no matter what was happening in life, I wanted to know this little one, I wanted to be his or her mom. It was then that I started letting myself get a little more excited, and I think it was then that my husband started getting more excited too. We started having fun with a baby name book, we started talking about the baby more, he started asking me "what did you do to help yourself and our baby be healthy today?" (to which I usually responded--"I slept!") and we started praying for baby. When we went for our first ultra sound seeing the flickering heart beat on the screen was such a beautiful sight, especially since they couldn't hear it via doplar the day before.

It's only week 10, and something tells me that this is going to be a crazy ride! I love that I'm pregnant at the same time as my little sister, and our babies will only be about 3 1/2 months apart. I love that Lily knows her mommy has a baby in her tummy and has seen ultra sound photos of her sister, and when she saw my ultra sound she immediately said "baby!" She now knows Auntie Sarah has a baby in her tummy too (she is starting to think she does as well...but that's probably to be expected!) I'm super excited to tell our other nieces and nephew they get to be cousins this weekend when they are here in person :) They will be fantastic cousins!

Tonight we went to babies r us to pick up a few things for our 8 month old niece who will be here this weekend and while there we struck up a conversation with a middle aged couple (the husband was enjoying the selection of rocking chairs). They have 4 grown kids (they were buying grandkid gifts I am guessing) and as we were leaving the conversation the husband said to my husband "thanks for not making your wife do this on her own." He told me later "I don't understand why a guy wouldn't want to be here with his wife, this is important, I wouldn't miss this." I am so grateful for his excitement to journey with me! He may not know a lot about pregnancy, child birth, or newborns, but he loves learning and sends super sweet text messages to me like "I love you and our hamster too!" throughout the day. For father's day this weekend the munchkin even bought him his first Father's Day gift--a newborn onesie that says "I love my Daddy" on it :)

So stay tuned, I'm sure that I'll have much more to share as this journey unfolds over the next 30 weeks (can you believe we're already 1/4 of the way there??) Thanks for walking this journey with us, friends!

Hellllo Sunshine!

I thought I'd share some photos from this past weekend since it was pretty much the nicest weekend we've had since moving here! Enjoy our latest adventures!

Friday afternoon Missy & I headed over to Whidbey Island for the start of the annual girl's weekend. The rest of our friends had to work and come later Friday night, but we arrived about 4, took a walk on the beach, and then made dinner together.Our meal was delicious if I do say so! I found butternut squash ravioli at Safeway that had an amazing alfredo/sage sauce. It was heavenly. That and a great salad, sliced apples and carrot sticks made for a fantastic start to the weekend--especially eating together on the back deck!We had brought everyone's food and luggage over in our car, so we set up the cabin while waiting for friends. The snack table was the most important :) We made cookies, guacamole, had fresh fruit, chips, crackers and plenty of beverages to choose from. I don't think anyone went hungry this weekend!Relaxing Saturday morning--reading, massages, sunlight, coffee. We were each assigned a meal to shop/prepare for, so Heather and I made a delicious breakfast of her famous pancake puff, fresh blueberries, bacon, and orange juice/mimosas. The tide was out Saturday (not as far as I've seen it go out but it was out enough for a great walk!) so a walk on the beach was the next activity after breakfast. I have so many memories on this beach--it's the beach our family would go to every summer--I have so many pictures of us as little kids climbing those sand dunes :)Leslie, Jen and Heather on our walkJen was in charge of lunch, and oh my word did she make the world's best sandwiches! Apparently they are sandwiches her husband makes often, and we will be too now that we've been introduced to their amazingness! Start with a large sourdough roll, pile on fresh mozzarella, turkey, and then a bunch of vegetables (red peppers, cucumbers, shredded zucchini, red onions) that have been soaking in olive oil/balsamic vinegar. The bread absorbs the balsamic, so instead of mayo or mustard the main flavor is sourdough and balsamic with the mozzarella and turkey undertones. Heaven I tell you, simply heaven.Darbee, Heather, Jen, Missy, Lynn, LesliePost lunch reading on the deckI had to leave after lunch on Saturday because of the U2 concert that night and I was teaching Sunday school the next day (the rest of the gang stayed til Sunday). The mountains on the ferry ride home were incredible. It was a gorgeous night for a concert! It was our first time to Qwest Field--I loved the view of downtown from it! The 360 degree stageLenny Kravitz openedBono...we heart him...