Christmas pictures

Thanks to my sister, I won't need to post pictures from Christmas. She created this awesome slideshow on her blog.

According to...

Peter.
Update number one from DC.
Before we arrived, Peter's room was cleaned. Deep cleaned. Dusting, vaccuuming, organizing occured. And new sheets were placed on the bed. Not by him, of course.
Then, Peter came home the night before we arrived. He, understandably, slept in his own bed.
He did what he normally does. He rolled into bed, with his clothes still on late in the evening. However, on this occasion, his normal, innocent action was detered.
As he slept, his nocturnal activity proved a demise to the great preparation effort made by my mother and sister. When he awoke, he found he had ground into the sheets small chocolates my sister had placed on the pillows.
Boy's eyes. The male powers of observation once again proved genetically deficient.

Departure

We are still in Phoenix. We delayed our departure for the holidays to DC a few days. We learned that there was a chance that our friends would be saying goodbye to their mother yesterday. We wanted to be available for them as this would be an understandably difficult day. We were grateful for the opportunity to serve them and stand by them as they walked through the "valley of the shadow of death" as a family.
Joneen Ross passed away sometime early yesterday morning. We were grateful for God's mercy to take her and not to prolong her struggle. According to the doctors I work with in private practice, only 5% of people survive her kind of heart attack, and of those, most live out the rest of their days in a nursing home.
The tragedy is very raw and real. The Ross family now faces Christmas, and life, without their mother, wife, grandmother and mother-in-law. Death may be inevitable, but always leaves us with the reality of loss. My mother said to me:

"...your compassion is from the Father’s heart….i just read again this morning from John 19 that “near the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden”….there is always a garden near our sorrows…a place where “he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am His own”

Her departure is felt deeply by our community. She was a wonderful beautiful woman of God. We will miss her. But we are grateful that she is with her Savior. That is our deepest comfort and abiding joy in the midst of sorrow.

Prayer needed

Please continue to pray for the Ross family as they continue to wait for the doctors to determine a safe time to monitor their mother's brain function. We wait with them, our prayers finding comfort in God's promises from 1 John 3:19

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, [4] and God [5] in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Prayers are needed...

Please pray for our friends' mother, Joneen, as she remains in a coma after a heart attack last night. Please pray that the damage to her brain would be minimal and that God would be comforting the families and our friends though this time.

Baby Update: Second Trimester

There are a lot of things going on this week! All twenty teeth have formed. Our baby approximately weighs 1 ounce. Consider that the placenta weighs about an ounce now as well.
Your baby's intestines are migrating from the umbilical cord into his or her abdomen. The villi are also forming in the intestines, these help in peristaltic movements and digestion. The pancreas is even secreting insulin.
The baby also got it's first Christmas presents: a blanket, a bib and onesie and a book...Goodnight Moon. We can't wait to read it to you!

According to...

...our little friend, Caden Spencer, who is almost three.
His mother found him last week on their townhouse stairs with his shirt off. He was holding his shirt and scrubbing the stairs vigorously with it. Erin asked, "Caden, what are you doing?" He answered, "Mommy, I'm baptizing people. Lots of people."
You see, we have had Sunday morning baptisms two Sundays in a row lately. We have a portable baptismal pool that is on stage. When some of the, shall we say, larger individuals are baptized, the wave of water can sometimes crest over the stairs leading inside. Usually, another pastor is on hand to wipe up the water as it spills onto stage. They use dry towels to dry off the stairs before that person exits the pool. Caden was just imitating them.

It reminds me of the Little Rascals episode where Buckwheat is being baptized in the river.
"Are you saved?" they ask their sheet-wrapped friends after they dunk them. And one of them is a stubborn sinner, because he answers everytime , "Nope". So under he goes again and again.
Guess they didn't have the indoor wave pool we do.

Baby Update: Week 12

Officially we are in the third month today. I must say that surviving the first three months has been a mild experience. I am so grateful that I have not had the morning sickness that most have; it has been God's grace which has helped me tremendously go to work every day... except yesterday. The weekend must have been more fatiguing that I realized because I woke up on Monday feeling very tired, nauseated and with a killer headache from sinus pressure. My wise husband told me to take a day off, convincing me by reminding me of what happens when I "push it". Fortunately, one of my kind co-workers with who I jobshare volunteered to go in for me.

Things we are learning preparing to be parents: the pack and play is obnoxious, Travis is learning to pronounce words like "Petunia Picklebottom" (the supposed cool mommy bag the girls at work refer to), and unclaimed boy names are more difficult to find than girl names.

The baby must be growing because I am hungry all the time, even though I still have some food aversions. My mom asked me if there was anything I particularly wanted while we were in DC. I told her I still wasn't very interested in meat like beef or chicken or pork. She asked if I like fish. I said probably not. She laughed and said that she was probably going to let me find my own meals then because the family might not appreciate carbs for every meal. But I do like eggs...

Baby Update: Week 11

Joyful update on the baby today. We went to our appointment yesterday and heard the heartbeat: a strong heartbeat at 177 beats per minutes. My heart rate was elevated too though-- instead of it's normal below-normal 90/60, it was 120/60. I had been running around at work trying to get over to my appointment and then mounted the two flights of stairs up and down from the kitchen and then more stairs to get to the Dr.'s office. I sat down after I checked in, turned two pages in a magazine and they said, "Come on back". My heartrate definitely did not have time to drop. Then I jumped on the scale and it showed I had lost 1/2 a pound, which wasn't a surprise since I haven't been working out as hard or as much. My tummy is definitely thicker though but no bump yet. My mom said she didn't show until 4 months. That means I have 5 more weeks to use my regular pants: yes!
For the baby, development continues on bones and joints. At this stage, the head is about 1/2 of the body size. The baby's irises develop this week and finger nails appear. The baby weighs about 7 grams.

According to...

"coolness" track suits and Coach bags are THE look for Christmas shopping. THE accessory for the year is a red holiday Starbucks coffee cup. Tennis shoes complete the look.
If you are under 18, the look would be short shorts and Ugg boots.

What are these girls/women thinking!?*!!
You see, Travis and I have spent too much time in the mall lately. Travis has been working and I have been joining him for dinners to break up the monotony. We just love "people-watching" ...which is really just criticizing other people's idea of fashion. Don't you just love our generous holiday spirit??