All posts by Jeff

Fun snapshot of what’s it like to be a seminary mommy…

I had almost 60 papers to grade this past week (4-5 pages each) and record into the online grading system.  I planned to finish the last dozen or so during Dutch’s nap on Monday, from 1-4, before leaving at 4:15 to get to my mentor meeting at 5pm.  I had it all planned out, including nursing Heidi at 3:45 so I could get her in the car and ready when Jeff was to arrive at 4:15 to take care of Dutch.  Well…from 1pm-3:30pm Heidi cried. Not just whimpered. CRIED and cried and cried and cried.  No matter how hard to tried to sit and use one arm to grade and one arm to rock her, she would only calm down when I walked around.  Why now?!   Finally, I managed to finish the grading and feverishly type in the scores while nursing her, then raced out the door at 4:23pm when Jeff arrived.  When he drove up Dutch was running around the front yard in his socks. 🙂

So I arrive at school and finally get up to my mentor’s office after racing to the computer lab to print off my assignments that were due, rocking Heidi’s car seat with my foot as she began to stir and grunt.  I rush into Val’s office (my mentor) and collapse in a chair.  She wants to hold baby so I pull Heidi out–Oh so precious! She is so sweet and warm and cuddly and hm…grunting a lot…hm…pushing a lot..hm–BLAST!  She blasts off the most explosive poop and Val goes, “Um, I think it’s all over my hands.”  Sure enough she hands Heidi to me and there is poop everywhere–all the way down to her fur-lined boots and all the way up her back.  Val is laughing hysterically holding out her hands which have poop on them.  As she walks to the door to go wash them and as I’m peeling off the layers of poopy clothing on the floor, there’s a knock at the door.  As the door opens her eyes widen, “Well hello Dean Redman!  Um… I have poop all over my hands.” Oh yes. Our new Dean of the seminary of course has come to the door and Val has poop all over her hands.  She rushes past him to wash them and he leaves, then comes back a moment later and peeks his head in, “Is there really poop all over in here?!”  Then he sees the baby and we introduce ourselves to each other, I welcome him the seminary, and apologize that for his own sake I will not be shaking his hand.

It was fun, and as my mentor professor has birthed and raised seven children of her own, she’s had plenty of explosive-poop experiences of her own.  Although I would dare to wager that that was the first time she’s had a poopy baby on the floor of her office.  As I drove home that night, I thought about how many amazing experiences I’ve had in my four years in seminary…and yes, I got all sentimental.  I don’t graduate until May but already I see the finish line, and am filled with mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I am so excited I can’t even describe it.  I’m SOOOOOO STINKING TIRED.  And I’m so ready to spend my son’s naptime doing something other than schoolwork!  But on the other hand, the halls of Multnomah are filled with some of the most amazing memories and God-ordained divine experiences I have ever had.  I’ve puked innumerable times in the stalls of the girls’ bathroom during my morning sickness bouts. I’ve cried. Lots. I’ve paced the halls studying flashcards. I’ve prayed with friends, played djembe for worship.  I’ve heard God’s voice and watched Him move. I’ve carried both children around in their carseats, dropping off papers and going to meetings.  I’ve waddled up the stairs hugely pregnant.

So as May 15th draws closer, I’m just thankful for this season.  And so very excited to walk across that platform as a testimony of God’s faithfulness and grace.  Not because of some master’s degree, which isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, but because these four years have taken me deeper with my Savior.  Sweet times as a seminary mommy.

Well I got permission to share :-)…and I think the details are so fun and such an example of our Great God.  So here’s the deal with our next adventure:

First off, as any of you know who have spent any time with us, we love love love our new church family and especially our new staff who have become like family to us.  Our lead Pastor and his wife and kids, though we’ve only known them six or seven months, have welcomed us with amazing love and I feel like I’ve known them forever.  But we had no idea just how much they’d welcome us in…

Last summer pastor Joel and his wife Joy (who blogs! Check her out here!) and kids sold their house and began construction on a new house with more room.  The floor plan they really  loved was really big, and after evaluating the economy, etc. they decided that it was best stewardship to just be conservative and go with something smaller, since they didn’t know what interest rates would be, etc.  So, their house gets built in a new housing development just walking distance from our new church building.  As our house sells (the one we live in that my brother owns) and we can’t find a place to live, and as their house nears completion, we all realize that their family, our family AND our entire church will be moving the same weekend!  We’ve just finished a new church building, so now the Lead Pastor’s family, Associate Pastor’s family, and entire church will be moving the same weekend…  I kept thinking, “Lord this is craziness! What are You doing?” 

So just weeks before they are planning to move in to their home, they are notified by the city that their house was built just feet too close to the street…and they are now unable to buy that house.  What?!  I’ve never even heard of something like that!  So, the builder–desperate to make a sale–makes them a special deal allowing them to buy the house next to their house for a huge discount.  Guess what floor plan that one is? You guessed it. The original large house plan that they loved in the first place. Plus, this one had tons of upgrades that they wouldn’t have justified choosing, but God saw fit to toss them in there for them free of charge :-).  And, because interest rates dropped to astonishingly lows, their payment remained nearly the same. That’s God!

So, they found themselves now moving into a huge house with…hmmm…two extra rooms and no furniture for them!  So you guessed it: They have generously offered to let us live with them for two months while we wait on the Lord and seek what He has for us next.  How amazing is that? God had that house picked out especially for them, knowing it would provide just the space we need.  And not only do we have two bedrooms, there’s a little sitting area between them that’s big enough to be our own little family room!  It’s like we have our own little flat in the midst of this new beautiful home we get to call our own.  As we drove to church today I pointed and said with a chuckle, “Look Dutch! There’s our new house!” 🙂  Plus Dutch is in heaven because there’s so much construction going on he can sit outside and watch dump trucks, cement mixers, and bulldozers all day long.  He thinks he’s moving to heaven!  Did I mention we’re just walking distance to the church. No more commuting!!  Have I mentioned we’re also walking distance to the park? Yeah…every little detail.

So all this to say I am giddy with excitment because I think God is up to something.  I am so moved and blessed that Joel & Joy would open up their brand new home to us, that they would practice what they preach, recognizing that nothing is theirs, but all is God’s.  A few months back Joel preached on wise stewardship and was talking about sharing with others and he said, “We firmly believe that you don’t have to own it to enjoy it!”  Well, Joel, we’re taking your advice. Thanks for letting us enjoy your house!

So thankful, so blessed, so anticipating what God will do next.  Blessed to be along for the ride…Move #9 and God’s been in them all.  I admit, my prayer is that #10 will be the magic number.  🙂

I love the feature that Jeff set up on this blog, to the right–“This week last year”.  It’s such a fun way for me to quickly recount the lessons, trials, and adventures that God was taking us through at this time last year.  Sometimes it’s encouraging, as I realize, “Oooh, that’s what You were doing, Lord!”  And sometimes it’s convicting: “Oh man, I’m still wrestling with that.” But it’s always fun to see progress.  Countless times in Scripture God tells His people to remember, to recount stories, to tell of the ways God tested them and blessed them.

It was interesting this week, as we’ve been going through three weeks of crazy house stuff–this house we live in selling, and then trying, trying trying to buy a house.  Offers rejected, an offer accepted and then the inspection showing that the house was unfit for habitation, a bank saying they’d take a certain offer and then rejecting it once we put it in writing.  Argh! It’s been frustrating and stressful to say the least. Then, when we settled on renting for a couple months just until the summer so we could catch out breath and reevaluate, we couldn’t even find a place near the church that would rent for less than a year!  I kept feeling like, “Ummm…God?  Not sure if you noticed but we need a place to live…not trying to be picky here, but please!!”  So in the midst of all this I glance over at “This week last year” and click on “A little thought for today.”  And the short post simply reads, “I don’t pray, “Lord, give me a home.” I pray, “Lord, be my home.”  Wow. I then remembered back to last year at this time, praying and praying that God would open up a job for Jeff so that we could move out of my parents’ house and into a home of our own.  It was amazing realizing it was almost two years ago that we decided to sell all our stuff, move out of our house, and move in with my parents.  I had no idea what adventure we signed up for!  And now I pray again, just like last year, “Lord be my home.” 

And…I am thrilled to share that God has provided a place for us to live for the next two months.  A wonderful family from our church has offered to let us stay in their home for two months while we pray and figure out what God has for us next.  Yay!  I’m not going to share all the details on here as I want to respect their privacy…but the whole story is SOOOOOO God, so if you’d like to hear feel free to email me individually and I’d love to share!  We’ll be walking distance to the church, and just blocks from the house that we are still hoping to buy, so we’ll get to know the neighborhood where we serve and hope to live.

So it appears we’re headed into yet another adventure, but I suppose that’s what following God is, right?! He has us on such a grand adventure as He molds our lives and uses us for His glory. I’m so excited to see what He has up His sleeve… 

I am convinced that Heidi has a “blog-sensor”.  She was lying here sound asleep. Dutch is asleep. Jeff is gone with church stuff tonight.  Silence.  Seizing the golden moment, I pull out my laptop, load my blogpage, prep my fingers to type…WAHHHHH.  SHe wakes. She cries.  She wails.  Not the kind you ignore and it subsides. Wailing…

—Now she’s asleep again.

I learned this week that I need help being helped.    My precious church family, friends, and parents have me in awe by their amazing generosity and labor of love for us during this crazy season.  Next week Heidi will be one month old and I have not cooked a single meal since she was born…and I even have food in my freezer because some days more than one family brought us dinner so some had to be saved for later!  Today a friend provided dinner complete with Haagen Daz Cookie Dough ice cream (my favorite!!), sparkling cider (my other favorite!), and fruit for my monkey boy.  Another dear person went to Costco to get diapers for me today and came back with not only diapers but a few of those crazy huge coscto cupcakes!  I will say, the amazing generosity of people has made is a LOT harder to lose those those pregnancy pounds!  Last time I think only 2-3 people ever brought us food…I was skinny as a rail in no time. 🙂 

Anyway, all that to say  that so many people have been asking “How can I help you?” or offering to come pack boxes or watch Dutch or do whatever.  And it has been so hard for me, because I don’t really know how to be helped.  It isn’t that I don’t WANT help, but I don’t know how to be helped. Anyone relate?  And I think I’m so afraid of being needy, demanding, self-centered, that I push people away who truly want to serve and show their love in practical ways. 

In all of this I’ve noticed that people who have been helped know how to help.  I guess somehow learning how to be helped helps us learn how to help!  (how’s that for confusing?) 

So I’m learning.  My precious small group leader of my women’s BIble study group even emailed Jeff to find out from him how to help me.  They’ve even offered to come over and do my “move out” cleaning so I don’t have to–now THAT is some ministry!  So this week I’ve been thinking through and asking God to show me how to be helped.  I’m realizing that the fact that God’s got me in a needy season is a beautiful way that He is knitting Jeff and me into our new church family here at Willamette.  It’s like we’re so weak and needy that we quit caring about having everything together, and we begin letting ourselves be vulnerable and transparent…and helped. And when that happens, intimacy, deep relationships, connectedness, and true fellowship takes place.  And I’m SO excited to use everything I learn about being helped to help others down the road!! 

So this week I’m making a list of “ways to be helped”… I’m learning!  And, THANK YOU to those of you dear sisters who have blessed my life beyond words these past three and a half weeks.  Your love, notes, lasagna, cookies, and presence have blessed my life more than I can ever express.  Thanks, guys, for the help.

This weekend was my first time back in church.  What a joy to finally be back!!  I felt like this dry, crusty old sponge, the kind that gets pushed back in the corner underneath the sink and forgotten.  (At least that happens in my house).  But as I saw my church family, as I stood with my husband with lifted hands praising my sweet Jesus, as God’s Word washed over my soul, as I partook in communion…my dry soul soaked up every last drop and I felt alive again.  Thank you, Jesus!  In fact, all week I have been reminded over and over how God’s presence, His Word, His people, are the most restorative thing in the world.  Last night and this morning we sang, “We are hungry, we are hungry, we are hungry for more of you.  We are thirsty, O Jesus, we are thirsty for more of you.”  And tears filled my eyes (and do right now) because that is the cry of my heart right now.  I am so desperately thirsty for more of Jesus, for more strength, more grace, more of Him.  I’ve never felt so weak and in need of Him in my life.

But even as I write that I wonder if I’m exaggerating how weak I feel.  It is true–huge shocker here–I am prone to exaggeration.  Chalk it up to being Bill Zyp’s daughter.  I love stories, and love to tell stories, and when I say that Dutch spread the Boudreax’s Butt Paste over the ENTIRE coffee table (and his face, and his truck), perhaps it wasn’t the ENTIRE coffee table. It was only about 1/3 of it. So there, there’s the truth.  It was still a low moment, as it happened at the same moment I checked my email and found out the house where we lived had sold and I was sitting in shock of the realization that now on top of a toddler, a newborn, an internship and a busy husband, we were adding “move…somewhere” to our list of things to do.  But the reality is the moment passed and it was not the end of the world. 

All that to say that I’m convicted by how self-absorbed I spend the majority of my life being.  Right now I’m doing the Beth Moore study on the book of Esther in our Women’s BIble study at church.  (By the way, where has Beth Moore been all my life?!  She’s hands down the best female BIble teacher I’ve ever heard…I’d recommend anything you can get your hands on by her.)  This last week, we studied how hesistant Queen Esther was to make any move in approaching the king to act on behalf of the Jews, her people, who were to be annhialated.  You can hear in her voice–“The King has not summoned me in 30 days”–that she is in the midst of a personal crisis. Her husband apparently no longer has use of her, and it seems that now is certainly not the time for her to be used by God for a miraculous deliverance of any kind. She’s got issues of her own.  She also has been so shielded from the real world, during her five years as Queen, that she fails to recognize the severity of the situation. Massive genocide is ensuing, and she doesn’t want to risk her neck.  She really just wants Mordecai to take off his sackcloth and get properly dressed.  She was too shielded from true hurt and tragedy.  Beth Moore writes this about the situation:

Esther has also detached from the common man’s need. We tend to detach from the sights and situations that make us feel badly about ourselves–especially when we feel powerless.  If we think we can’t do anything about a bad situation, we’d just as soon not have to see it. 

HEre’s the trap, however: If we distance ourselves long enough from the real needs, we replace them with those that aren’t.  Pretense becomes the new real and suddenly a delay in the deliver of our new couch becomes a terrible upset. We are wise to force ourselves to keep differentiating between simple inconveniences and authentic tribulations.  The more detached and self-absorbed we become,the more we mistake annoyances for agonies. It happens to all of us.

Oh conviction rests on me so heavily! This is where I’ve been living.  The reality is that I’m in a season, a situation, with some invconveniences.  We had some disappointments this past week with four different house hopeful situations falling through. The reality is simply that I don’t know where we’re going to live and yes, there are quite a few things on my plate right now.  But truly, friends–these are not tribulations.  They are minor, very minor, inconveniences that only become tribulations if I let them.  And how detached I’ve let myself be from the real hurts and sorrow of the world that I’ve let my little inconveniences become huge tribulations.  Perhaps post-partum hormones play a role too. 🙂

The message at church drove home this point even further.  As we finish our study of Colossians, we went through chapter 4: 2-6, focusing on praying that the gospel message will go out, and that God will use us to speak boldly and clearly.  Pastor Joel shared how sad it is that we become so absorbed in our trivial little matters that we lose all focus on what matters–souls being added to the Kingdom of God.  Guilty as charged.  SO guilty as charged.

Anyway, I’m only half focusing on his post as both kids are awake, so perhaps it doesn’t all make sense. But I’m just trying to say, to myself, Kari–don’t let your mole hills turn into mountains.  God will not let you sleep in the street. He’ll provide a place to live, and I will survive this silly season.  He knows my weak frame, and He’s faithful.  Remember it’s inconvenience, not tribulation. 

God is so good. That’s the first thing I just have to say.  My life still feels a little crazy right now (a lot crazy), but on Monday God just gave me a big huge perspective change like only He can do. I really will share the rest of my fun stories with you, but also wanted to stay current and praise God for His Work.  Saturday-Monday we made three offers on houses and all three were rejected, and by Monday morning…

darn!  Heidi just woke up crying.  Ok, this post will wait.  I WILL keep trying to blog! I WILL keep trying to blog! Please don’t give up on me world! I want to share so much but need to be a mommy too… 🙂

*Warning, this post includes accounts of explosive infant poop.

First it must be said that my hospital stay was amazingly wonderful.  With Dutch I was so anxious to get home and in my own bed, eating my own food, and not smelling that wretched hospital smell that I couldn’t leave soon enough.  So this time I was thinking that as soon as they said I could go home I would.  The first night started out rough; Heidi apparently had lots of amniotic fluid/blood in her stomach so she was fussy/spitty/upset all evening. But the blessing was that a friend of mine, from church, is a labor and deliver nurse there at the hospital.  And, amazingly (coincidence? I think not!) she was on duty from 7pm-7am both nights that we were there (which was amazing because she had many days off before and then an entire week off after).  So she was there to help, to take Heidi for us, and just somehow made everything feel wonderful to me.  And I soon discovered, why on earth would I want to go home when I have my meals brought to me, constant care, a jacuzzi bathtub in my room, and a friend with me all night long to take Heidi so I can sleep?  Pretty good deal! Plus I knew a sick two-year-old was awaiting me at home…This time in the hospital, I had no complaints!  Hospital food?  It’s fabulous when it’s brought to you and you’re starving!  I was definitely less picky the 2nd time around! 

The second night Jeff went home to take care of Dutch, who was pretty sick and sleep-deprived by this point.  So he went and had Daddy-Dutch night and Heidi and I stayed. 

Coming home was a shock.  Dutch was still sick, and Jeff needed to get back to work that day.  So we came home that morning, Dutch went into massive panic mode only wanting MOMMY.  Wanting mommy to read, Mommy to hold him, mommy to give him his banana, mommy to carry him around.  Plus he was sneezing everywhere and coughing, so I was constantly wiping down him, me, hands, surfaces, with lysol wipes, and trying to keep him from touching Heidi or her blankets.  Amazing. By Wednesday night when Jeff got home, the house looked like a hurricane hit, and I said to please call my parents and ask them to come the next day.  🙂  They did.

And then it got so much better.  Each day has been better and better. What’s funny is that all week I said, “I”ll be ok as long as the house doesn’t show.”  So what happens? Late thursday night we get a call that the house is showing Friday. :-).  So we clean, then pack up and adventure out Friday afternoon.  Then, Saturday morning, we get a call that the house will show again that very day at 11:30am.  So Megan comes over and hangs with the kids while we straighten up, then we pack up and head to the park for the afternoon with a picnic lunch.  During this time Heidi and I stayed in the car, and she had the most massive explosive poops–three of them!  When I took off her diaper for the first one, it had gone all the way up her back to her neck :-).  Soaked through all her clothes and her blanket. I took off her diaper and started wiping, and she pooped again on me!  Just as I cleaned up that one with a million wipes, she poops out another one!  By now there is poop everywhere and all I can do is laugh.  Eventually we get her clean, back in her carseat totally naked (I ran out of clothes for her!) and we have our picnic lunch in the car.  It was actually an awesome memorable adventure! Then, as soon as we get home, I get another call from a realtor–the house is showing again tomorrow! By now I am laughing out loud. Three times in our first five days at home? What are the odds? Ok Lord, I get it.  You’re in charge. 

—I had to end this post and save it as a draft, and it’s hilarious looking at it now because the second week of HEidi’s life has been so much more insane than the first week I am now laughing.  I have much more to write now but no time to do it! The house ended up showing SIX times the first week of HEidi’s life, and then SOLD the day Heidi turned one week! 🙂  Wow.  I now have TWO unbelievable poop stories, a Butt Paste story that will horrify you, and just for the record, I’ve spent the last two hours crying. 

So, more to tell.  “The First Five Days” has turned into “The First Month” because we are now moving in three weeks! Ha!  And I’m supposed to start back at my internship this week, doing 10 hours of work each week. Hmmm. ANd I have no idea where we’re moving.  Did I mention both my kids seem to have exploding poop episodes more often than normal?  ANyway, many more fun stories to tell, just no time right now because Heidi’s needing me and the dryer buzzer just went off.  I’m perfecting the one-handed laundry-fold, dish-washing, typing, you name it. 🙂  Lots of fun stories to tell…the problem is that I have to live through them.

So there you have it. More to come.  “The First Month” will be nothing but fun stories that hopefully demonstrate God’s sweet mercy in the midst of a crazy season. Enjoy.

*Some of you will not care about labor stories…if that’s you feel free to skip this one.  Some of us strange girls love them.

Well I am breaking my own rule, just this once, of sleeping when Dutch & Heidi are sleeping.  It’s been a week and I’m missing you!  I cannot believe it’s only been five days that dear Heidi has been with us.  How can you be so in love with someone you’ve only known 5 days!  I know it’s futile to try to convey to you how utterly captivated I am by my daughter.  I just sound like another gushing mom. But really, this little wee fairy of ours has stolen our hearts…even though she pooped on me three times today! 🙂

Speaking of, I had to post just an overview of the last five days.  No spiritual significance here, it just seems that after giving birth I have this strange desire to tell everyone about it.  And, life with a newborn, recovering from childbirth, a sick toddler, a busy pastor husband, and a house that’s for sale, there’s never a dull moment! 

First, labor.  Oh my goodness.  Every rule of how it’s supposed to be went out the window. Dutch’s labor was early, super fast, and super easy.  I still looked good afterwards!  And everyone and their mother (including my midwife) that this one would be even earlier, faster, and easier.  Sweet!  I was all set for her to arrive at least a week early and be quick and easy.  So, the night before my due date, I had contractions, painful but irregular, all night. By early Sunday morning they were 5 min. apart and consistent. Sweet! They say 2nd moms should go the hospital when they are 5 min. apart.  We get Dutch up and discover he’s come down with a horrible cold.  Are you kidding me? Not today.  Ok, that’s ok.  We call and tell my parents to stay posted, and wait.  And then…the contractions stop.  Stop.  What?!  Then all day Sunday they are off and on, 20 min apart, 30 min apart, 10 min apart.  No rhyme or reason. I go for two long walks (4.5 miles!), waddling my miserable self along the sidewalk, stopping to try to breathe through the contractions, probably looking like a crazy woman.  We wait.  And wait.  We eat an entire large pepperoni pizza and let Dutch watch Cars all day long.  And wait. 

Slowly they get stronger. By 9:30 that night they are way stronger than before, and regular, 5 min. apart. But who knows.  at 10:30 we call my parents and ask them to come.  By 11pm they are insanely strong and 2 minutes apart, excruciating.  They were ten times worse than any contractions I ever had with Dutch, and way closer, lasting a minute each and coming every 2 minutes. By the time my parents get there I am in a zone and can’t even think, trying to breathe through these.  I’m thinking, “Yes! This is going to be FAST! These are insane contractions!”  We get to the hospital, they check me.  1 cm.  ONE STINKING CENTIMETER!! You are kidding me? I was 1 cm. at my last doctor’s appointment! NO progress?  None?!  They say to walk around for an hour and they’ll check me again.  Walk??  Walk??  I try to stumble through the hospital halls, a few steps then moaning and breathing through these crazy things. After an hour, which felt like an eternity, they come back at 1am and check me.  By then I have chills and am shaky–I’ve got to be in transition by now!  Nightmare of all nightmares, she checks me…I’m STILL at 1 cm. NO PROGRESS whatsoever. Are you kidding me?  “I’m so sorry honey but you have to go back home.”  Ok, I respond, no big thing. They give me a small dose of morphine to help me relax and try to slow the contractions a bit so I can at least catch my breath in between.  Then I change back into my clothes, delirious, and stumble back outside to our car.  As soon as I sit down I begin bawling.  “I’m gonna die.  I can’t do this for 10 hours.”  I can laugh about it now.  I was just crying Jesus help me Jesus help me all the way home. 

Once home the morphine helps take the edge off and helps me relax enough so the contractions space to 5 min. apart.  So for three hours at least I can rest a little in between and text message a dear friend who stayed up that night praying for me.  By 5am the morphine is long gone and they are picking up speed and intensity again.  I figure what the heck they can send us home again but at least we have to get back to the hospital because they are worse than ever and I will get more morphine or strangle the nurses to death and get some myself.  We arrive at 5:30am, at 6am she comes to check me and says, “You’re staying!” and I thought she meant “You’re staying at 1cm” and I just about pass out…then she continues, “You’re staying, you’re 5 cm, do you want an epidural?”  And I begin weeping and crying out loud, “Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!” She seriously must have thought I was a religious nut. ALl I could do was cry and tell Jesus how much I loved Him. (I’m laughing right now remembering).  At 7am I got an epidural and at 8am I started pushing–so that part went fast.  But little Miss Heidi still didn’t want to come! With Dutch it was like 3 hard pushes, 9 minutes, and he jumped out.  No such deal with this girl. ALmost 1.5 HOURS of intense pushing, with the cord wrapped around this little angel’s neck, and finally she was born at 9:28am.  Broken blood vessels in my eye and the next day I felt like someone had taken me out back and beat me with baseball bat.  Goodness sakes.  Talk about not what I expected. Easier labor the 2nd time, eh?  🙂  Not me.  But oh so worth it! She came out beautiful, of course.  Our little wee fairy.

And speaking of our wee fairy, time to feed her.  More adventures to come… 🙂

A glimpse of our new daughter is over here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I have to admit, Jeff and I aren’t huge Valentine people.  We love eachother, of course, but I guess i”m just not into the red-heart-ballooon thing and the fact that good red roses cost $50/dozen.  But at our church a friend of mine, along with some other women, do a workshop each year on how to bless your husband for Valentine’s Day.  My friend’s mom was the one who started it, as she would do amazing and ridiculous things for her husband during the two weeks before Valentine’s Day.  FOr example, she would make huge posters saying, “Trish loves Mark!” and staple them to telephone poles along his route to work.  She’d send him packages at work, secretly drop off cookies for him and all his co-workers, or have random people like the UPS guy deliver love notes.  Basically, after probably close to 30 years of marriage she still found it hilarious to bombard him with reminders of her love…and perhaps have a little fun embarrassing him in front of his co-workers at the same time.

But the point of the workshop was all about finding ways to bless your husband.  Not just a cheesy card or a box of chocolates, and not just expecting your husband to do something for YOU, but choosing to take the first step and do something unexpectedly for him.  Something that’s tailor made for him.  I must say it was encouraging and challenging.

I wish I could say that I DID all of those things.  But, I confess, I really thought I’d be giving Jeff a daughter for Valentine’s Day and so we kind of just got wrapped up in prepping for the baby.  The day came, and…well, I gave him some Mike’s Hard Lime and a box of Cheese-its. (Hey, give me a break! Those ARE a treat for him.) 

But my husband spoke my language today.  Most everyone is familiar with the Five Love Language book. Well, I am an Acts of Service girl hands down.  Jeff knows the way to my heart is to save our money and spend a few hours scrubbing the floor instead.  Really though, what ministers to me more than anything is when Jeff is willing to lay aside his schedule, priorities, and needs to make my requests a priority.  So you want to know how he wooed me today?  Scrubbed the shower (the worst job!) top to bottom, swept and mopped all the floors, vacuumed the carpet, gave Dutch a bath, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned out my car, and swept the garage.  Yeah! Happy Valentine’s to me!  I think I told him a dozen times today that this was the best Valentine’s Day ever. 

So thank you, Hon, for speaking my language today.  Thank you for blessing me with your time and your hard work.  Happy Valentine’s Day.