Lost

Update: She came back! We think one of the construction guys put her back in our yard. Please pray she doesn't get out again!

Our family dog, Batgirl is lost! The city of Barling is doing some construction behind our house and they had to remove the back part of our fence. They replaced it with some chain length fence, but Batgirl still managed to get out. The construction guys said they'd seen her all morning, but Shaun just went looking for her and he didn't see her. And they are all scared of her. Not that she'd hurt them...I don't think, anyway. She would if they posed a threat to one of us. I'm so upset. She's been with us ever since she was born...and she was conceived on our honeymoon! Trust me when I say she's one of the family. Please pray that we find her!

The Details

Here they are, the gory details of this pregnancy so far. (Hopefully not too gory!)

I usually have a pretty regular cycle that lasts about 25 days. So when 28 days had come and gone I was starting to get a little suspicious. That was almost 2 weeks ago. Since we were broke, I made myself wait until Monday, when Shaun got paid, to buy a test. It was really hard going that whole weekend without knowing. We weren't trying, so I freaked out a little bit at first. Financially, I didn't think we were ready for another one so soon. But I began to realize that God had His hand in this and He brought us through the first pregnancy--with no insurance--and He'll bring us through this one. So Monday rolled around and when we did our grocery shopping, I got a test. I learned my lesson last time with those tests that have the lines that are hard to read sometimes. So we went for the digital. I knew that the best time to test was in the morning so I made myself wait until the next morning. Tuesday morning, November 20 I woke up and took the test. Very quickly and plainly it said Pregnant. It was such a relief to know for sure! I immediately began planning how we were going to tell our families. Since it was right before Thanksgiving, I knew there was an opportunity for some creativity.

For Shaun's parents, we were going to make a shirt for Cayson that said, "I'm going to be a big brother!" and let him wear it to the family get-together. However, our shirt didn't quite make it. So Shaun made a slide show with our Mt. Magazine pics (most of his family hadn't seen them yet) and at the end we put the picture of Cayson that had him announcing that he was going to be a brother. (From my last post.) For my parents, we made them and my brother birthday cards...they all have birthdays in November. We put our family pictures on the front and inside said, "We didn't know what to get you for your birthday, but we think it's the perfect gift. Just one catch...it won't be delivered for another 9 months!" And we taped a small Babyruth candy bar to it. My mom and brother got it, but my dad didn't. It went over his head! Everyone was really excited.

The Symptoms

So far, I've only been experiencing a lot of queasiness. With Cayson, I never threw up, but I was just occasionally queasy. With this one, I'm queasy just about all day. And guess what really sets it off: sweets! Aagh! I can't even drink sweet tea. Right now all I want is Kool-Aid. Also, I am sooooooooo tired! I can't even sort laundry without needing to rest.

As to the sex, I don't have a preference...too much. I'd love to have a girl, but I love boys too. I definitely won't be disappointed if it's a boy. We just don't have a boy name yet. The girl name has been picked out since before Cayson was born. I'll wait to divulge that when we find out.

I haven't been to a doctor yet, we've got to find one up here. Last time, I delivered in Warren. And as much as I LOVE Dr. Wharton, I can't handle the drive again. So if anyone knows of a good doctor in the Fort Smith area, let me know. However, after doing some calculating at Babycenter.com's pregnancy due date calculator, the tentative due date is July 22, which puts me about 5 weeks. So Cayson and this baby will be almost 2 years apart.

Please remember our family in your prayers, especially our new little blessing. We're very excited, even though I know it's going to be a tough road ahead. Everyone keeps telling me to be afraid of this baby since Cayson was such a good baby! LOL. Thanks, everyone, for the well wishes!

Exciting News!

Yes, we're having another baby!!!

Blessings

Our church has been involved in three ministries that culminated today. First of all, our Women on Mission have been collecting coats for people in need. Secondly, we have had several families to participate in Operation Christmas Child. And lastly, our church family has been donating money towards buying people in our community Blessing Baskets. Well, they're actually bags, but I guess basket sounds better. Anyway, this morning, everyone brought their Operation Christmas Child boxes to the church and the children each brought one to the altar and we prayed over them. This afternoon, we invited over 300 people from the Lavaca, Central City, and Barling area to our church to listen to a presentation of the gospel and to receive a bag of groceries, enough for about 2-3 days. Also, we had the coats set up where anybody could grab a coat if they needed one. I'm not sure what the actual numbers were, but we ended up with several families there tonight to receive their "basket". Hopefully we were able to meet not only someones physical hunger, but their spiritual one, as well.

I know these ministries have been blessings to our church family. I was so pleased with the amount of church members we had helping in one way or another tonight.

A Childlike Faith

A 12 year old boy phoned in to a radio station in to Houston and it was so awesome, they posted the conversation on their website. It's short, so take the time to listen.

Who Am I?

Family Pictures Fall 2007, Part 3

There are tons more, but I picked out some of my favorites. And yes, we got ALL the proofs, so there are some really cute ones of Cayson being, well, Cayson!

Family Pictures Fall 2007, Part 2

Family Pictures Fall 2007

Finally, Fall Festival 2007 Pictures!

My little monkey
2 Pirates and a monkey

Babysitting

Today I get the joy of finding out what it's like to have a 4 year old and a 14 month old. I'm babysitting a church member's 4 year old son today. So far it's been ok, other than leading Cayson to drag almost all of his toys into the living room! I quickly had to make a 5-toys-in-the-livingroom rule. It should be fun. Cayson's already enjoying having someone to play with. We'll see how it goes!

Baby Sign Language

This is the most amazing thing. Cayson, 14 months, is really starting to pick up signs now. I was a little skeptical at first, but I kept hearing how good it was for both us and the baby. So I started with a couple signs when he was about 8 or 9 months old. "Thank you" and "drink" were the ones we chose, with "more" thrown in there a little later. He did "thank you" once about 2 months ago, but he didn't do it again. This past week, he finally did "more". And kept doing it. Once he figured out that "more" got him what he wanted, he used it for everything! And I was so excited that we were communicating, I had to fight to not give he everything he wanted. He's a bottomless pit! The next day or so, we worked on "drink" with him. And he picked it up right away. Now, he's having a hard time getting the sign correct, but we know that it's "drink". And he says "drink" at the same time. (It actually sounds more like "dink"). Now he's starting to say "more" when he does the sign. Now he's learned the sign for "hungry", which is rubbing his belly. It's so cute! Today he did the sign for "thank you" again. This one is a little more sporadic, I guess because there's nothing physical to associate with it. He's picking up these signs so fast I've got to learn some more so I can keep up.

When someone talked about baby sign language before Cayson was born, I was convinced that it would lead to speech delays, but I've since learned that's not true. It's just like learning to crawl before they walk. It's an "in-between" step. And they eventually end up dropping the signs and just speaking. You can check out this site for more information about baby sign language.

New pics coming soon!

We took my son to Mt. Magazine to take family pictures today. One of our church members is an aspiring photographer so he offered to take them. We had a great time; I'm not sure how the pics are gonna turn out though, Cayson didn't cooperate very much! He was fascinated by the leaves on the ground. And he didn't want to be held at all. We'll see. We took some by Cove Lake first. There was a really big rock in that area that we climbed on. Also, we took pics from the hangliding point. And we finished up in front of the Lodge. They have this beautiful manmade waterfall in front. Cayson was getting pretty tired and grumpy by then, so we decided to head back into town and get some lunch and head back to Central City. I've really been wanting a "railroad" shot, with the 3 us walking on the railroad tracks, so we did that when we got back into town. By then, Cayson had had a nap and was rarin' to go! However, this time he was enthralled by the rocks. He wanted to throw them everywhere. We'll see how it turns out.

Pondering

I wrote this post this morning at about 6:30ish, but our internet wasn't cooperating. So I typed it up in Word and now I'm copying and pasting it in, now that my techno-hero has woken up and fixed the internet.

Main Entry: pon·der (from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)
Pronunciation: \ˈpän-dər\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): pon·dered; pon·der·ing \-d(ə-)riŋ\
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French ponderer, from Latin ponderare to weigh, ponder, from ponder-, pondus weight — more at pendant
Date: 14th century
transitive verb

1 : to weigh in the mind : appraise <pondered their chances of success>

2 : to think about : reflect on <pondered the events of the day>

intransitive verb

: to think or consider especially quietly, soberly, and deeply
— pon·der·er \-dər-ər\ noun

I wonder if Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have been a blogger, had she lived in our modern times. I wonder this because of the part of the Christmas story when it says she pondered these things in her heart. Maybe she pondered them in her heart because she wanted them to be a secret, between her and God. But maybe, if she had the tools she would have blogged about it. I know that when I ponder some things, I get an urge to blog about it. Like this morning. Cayson woke up at about 5 this morning. Shaun went and got him and placed him in bed with us. As he was cuddling with me, I began to ponder the wonder that is this child that God made for us. I pondered the success of last night. (More about that in a minute.) I pondered the fact that even though he’s becoming a daddy’s boy, he still wants to cuddle with Mommy.

About that, him becoming a daddy’s boy. This started a few days ago, last weekend really. He wants to be with his daddy almost all the time. I love that, really I do. I can’t wait for the day when he’s old enough for his daddy to teach him how to play ball and build things and work on cars and other “manly” things. But it’s been a little hard, especially since it coincides with his weaning. Side note—we made the decision to let him wean himself, instead of forcing him to. It has been such a good decision, for both of us. But now, I’m wishing he had waited a little longer. I miss that time with him. However, I am very glad that he still wants to cuddle with me in the wee hours of the morning.

Now, about last night…we had our annual Family Fall Festival to end our Family Emphasis month at First Southern. We do a Trunk or Treat where we turn our trunks into carnival-type games. Shaun and I decided to do a trunk this year. We made it a pirate theme, even dressing the part! We turned our jeep into a boat, complete with a treasure chest full of candy and a life size cutout of Capt’n Jack Sparrow. We named our boat “The Mini Pearl”. Get it? (On Pirates of the Caribbean, the boat was called the black pearl. Plus, it’s a pun for Minnie Pearl.) I wish I had pictures to show you, but I forgot to bring the camera. Several other people took pictures, so I’ll have to beg for copies. For our game, we used our Nintendo Wii, letting the kids play tennis, bowling, or baseball. It was the big hit of the night. We always had a long line of kids. We even won a Walmart gift card for the most creative Trunk. Cayson dressed up as our little monkey. He was so adorable! And he kept his hood on for most of the night!

As I’ve been posting, I’ve been going through a Bible study called Victoriously Frazzled. Yesterday, I was able to really apply the truths I’ve learned in that study. Normally, getting ready for an event like that I would be totally stressed out. I’m a perfectionist, so if things don’t go the way I think they should I get upset. However, yesterday I was pretty calm. Even when the timeline of building our “boat” didn’t exactly go as planned and we had to leave a few things off (mainly our “cannons”). I give God the full glory for this, as there is no way I could have remained calm and peaceful myself. Also, this week’s study has been on Godly responses and letting our light shine, so to speak. I was able to apply that as well, especially since we had tons of guests. I got to meet several nice families, including one that just moved to Central City. So, all in all, last night was such a huge success…and a lot of fun!

I know this is a long blog post, but as I said, I needed to blog this morning. Something about the quiet of the morning and a steaming cup of coffee makes blogging so much easier.

Here are some updates on Cayson:

He has learned his first sign. We’ve been teaching him baby sign language and he finally is starting to pick it up. I was sitting on the couch Monday and he starting whining about something. He was standing at the gate of the kitchen. I thought at first he wanted his football that he’d thrown over, but that wasn’t it. Finally, he turned around, looked at me, and gave the sign for “more” and pointed at his empty bowl leftover from breakfast a couple hours earlier. He wanted more to eat! I was so excited to see him communicate with me! I gave him a snack and he was very happy that I understood him! He has continued to use “more” every day this week. So far, he uses it for when he wants something to eat and drink, so we’re working on “drink” and “hungry”. We’ve been working on “thank you”. I wish you could see him when he does the sign for “more”. It is so cute, makes my heart melt! And now, he’s trying to say “more” with the sign. It comes out more like a tentative “mo” right now.

He’s trying to feed himself with a spoon. He’s getting so independent. I’ll be feeding him and half-way through he’ll take the spoon and want to finish by himself. And he doesn’t make that big of a mess. He’s also trying a few veggies again, without me hiding them in potatoes!

He’s able to step up and down small steps, but he’ll only attempt when I’m holding his hand!

So far he can say daddy, mama, ball, cat, dog, batgirl (sounds like “aatguhl”, our dog btw), uh oh (his favorite word right now!), and almost drink and more.

Did I mention he’s very independent???

Well, I’ve taken enough of your time, if you’re even still reading by now. Sorry it was so long. I don’t blog enough for it to be too much of a problem, though. Cayson’s up now, so I better go. Have a great day!