2007 Year in Review

Fellow bloggers, I'm leaving for South Arkansas in 1 day, so this will more than likely be my last post for a couple of weeks. A week, at least. We are coming home on January 2. So, I thought I'd post a review of this year's happenings with my family and our church work.

Cayson
Boy, what a year this has been! Cayson will turn 16 months in just a few days. He's had so many milestones this past year! It was around this time last year that he first started eating a little rice cereal and now he's eating everything we do. Well, almost anything. Just not most veggies! Especially if they're green! He's got his daddy in him there! Also, he's learned to crawl, pull up, cruise, and walk. He has 8 teeth, with 1 breaking through now. He's had 2 haircuts, the first one on his birthday and the 2nd one just on Wednesday. He's growing out of a size 4 shoe and in between 12 and 18 months size clothes. He weighs about 23 pounds. This year he's been on several trips with us: to Minneapolis to the Mall of America, to Fort Worth for a youth ministry conference, and to Stuart, OK for youth camp at Camp WOW. He's got several people in our church wrapped around his little finger! If he decides he doesn't want to be in the nursery and starts crying, usually someone will come and get him out and walk around with him! We never have to want for babysitters, either! He has been such a good baby and toddler. He hasn't been very sick at all, with the exception of a couple of viruses. He's a joy to be around and I'm very thankful that God gave him to us!

Shaun
This past year Shaun has had a few milestones, himself. He turned 29 in April and celebrated his first Father's Day in June. He will celebrate his 2 year anniversary at First Southern in just a couple months. Also, this was the year of weddings for him. He sang at 3 weddings, served as best man for his brother's, and actually got to marry his first and second couple this year. I'm so proud of him and his willingness to be used by God!

Me
Well, I turned 24 in June, which means I've been out of high school for 6 years and out of college for 3. Crazy how time flies! I've experienced another move, just to a different house this time. I took on teaching the 1st and 2nd grade Sunday school class in June and I love it! Also, I taught a junior high girls Bible study this summer. I played Mary Magdalene in our Easter cantata and Lisa/Elizabeth in our Christmas musical. I found out in November, just before Thanksgiving that we're going to have another baby! Also, Shaun and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary this month and 6 years together in all in October.

First Southern
This has been an amazing year at First Southern. Our theme for this year was "Go". In the student ministry, we've grown a little bit, even seeing 3 of our kids come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. We took the students to Minneapolis for spring break and Camp WOW for summer camp. We finished up our student worship area early this year and it looks awesome. We saw 2 of our students graduate from high school in May.

In the worship ministry area, we have grown so much! We presented "The Borrowed Tomb" on Palm Sunday. It was a huge success. We began preparing a worship cantata, "God for Us", soon after Easter. We presented it in August. It was such an awesome time of worship and reflection on what God has done for us. We had Christmas in August to reveal to the choir what musical we would be doing for Christmas. We had so much fun with that! We added several members to the choir, including a couple of teenage girls. Also, we saw one of our longtime accompanists "retire" from playing so she could sing in the choir and be free to travel. It's taking 3 ladies, including me, to fill her shoes! And we could never completely do that! She's a tiny woman, but those are some big shoes to fill, so to speak. But Shaun put us on a rotation basis so we could all still sing in the choir, too. We also add a guitarist to our worship time, which brings our instruments to piano, keyboard, and guitar. We are adding congas tomorrow!!!! We just presented our Christmas musical, "Be Not Afraid", this past Sunday and Wednesday night. This was the first time we attempted to present a musical twice and it was a success. We had over 100 people there on Wednesday night and almost half of those were guests! Tomorrow, we are having a "Homecoming Christmas". We are using 2 guitars, congas, and a praise team to lead in worship. We are also taking the Lord's Supper and singing by candlelight. I'm very excited.

We added a women's ministry this year. Our Women's Ministry Coordinator is doing a fantastic job. Last February she organized a Beth Moore simulcast conference for all the women in the River Valley. It was a huge success with many decisions made. We had a women's Bible study this fall with over 30 women taking part.

We've had 11 additions this year, some by baptism, some by letter. In our GROW ministry, we seen at least 2 salvations. For Thanksgiving, we provided Blessing Baskets for people who needed food for Thanksgiving. There was at least one salvation as a result.
Our church really stepped it up ministry-wise this year. I am so excited to see what God is going to do in 2008!

Well, that was pretty long. I think this was just as much, if not more for me as it was for you. It is so good for me to go back and remember what God has done in the life of our family and church. God is so good! I pray that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Our Christmas Present is on its Way!

Yeah I know what I'm getting for Christmas. And I'm super excited! Shaun and I decided to buy something together this year because it's so hard for us to shop by ourselves and actually surprise each other. Especially for me. He sees exactly what is spent and where it is spent. Anyway, we had purchased a Kodak EasyShare camara about a year and a half ago. Well, it broke right before Christmas last year. And we've been depending on our camara phones and family members' camaras for pictures ever since. Well, we found an awesome deal on a Fuji camara the other day. It's a 10 megapixel, 10x optical zoom, and it's got lots of other nifty features. It will be here Wednesday!!! So get ready for lots and lots of pics!

Ugh

As I alluded to in my last post, I have been very sick this week. And not from being pregnant, either. I caught the stomach bug that's been going around. I was up all night Tuesday night throwing up. Wednesday morning Shaun actually took Cayson to work with him so I could get some sleep. I am so thankful that his job is flexible like that. I slept all morning and woke up at lunch to find him cooking me chicken noodle soup! I couldn't eat much; in fact, I only drank the broth from it. Shaun left Cayson with me that afternoon because he needed his nap. Bless his heart, he slept for 2 and a half hours! So I got to sleep some more. I didn't go to church Wednesday night, either.

Thursday I woke up feeling much better, just extremely weak and sore. And this was our anniversary. I wanted to get out of the house, but my appetite wasn't completely back. So we went to Panera Bread so I could get some soup. Then we went Christmas shopping. This was so hard at first, but the more we walked around, the more my strength started coming back.

Friday I woke up feeling much, much better. I had more strength, but I was still sore. We had our dress rehearsal for our Christmas musical last night. It was kind of rough for me, standing up there for so long. But we had a pretty good rehearsal. Not perfect, though. So pray for us on Sunday morning!

I'm typing this post at 4:30 am Saturday morning. I woke up at 4 feeling queasy. I'm guessing this is just plain ole morning sickness. Plus, somehow my son ended up in bed with us. He's grown quite a bit, so that doesn't leave much room. So I came in the living room to blog and clear my head and hopefully get some more sleep on the couch.

If I get to actually plan the next pregnancy (yes, I want 3) I'm going to try and not be pregnant at Christmas! Or at least, not be in the first trimester at Christmas. It has been so hard to even want to do the things I usually love to do at Christmastime...like decorate my tree. Which still isn't done yet. It's up, the lights are on, the ornaments are in a box beside the tree, I just haven't had the time or the energy to do it. We're leaving for my parents' house in a week, anyway, to spend the week of Christmas and New Year's with them. So, it probably won't get done.

So, moms, has it been your experience that when you were pregnant with your daughter(s) (if you have one) you were sicker with her than with your son(s)? I've been told this by several women at church. If it's true, then this must be a girl! lol. Oh well, I guess I'll find out soon enough. Thanks for listening to my queasy ramblings. Have a great day and weekend!

Happy Anniversary, O Husband of Mine!

Shaun and I, while we were dating, about 2002

Razorback game this year

This was a show that we were in together at UAM.

Shaun and I got married four years ago today, after being engaged for six months, and dating for a year and a half before that. So, we've been together 6 years in all! It's so hard to believe! We've been through so much together already. We've served in 3 churches, moved 5 times, had one child, and one is on the way! One day, when I feel like writing down the whole story, I'll tell you how we met, got engaged, etc. It's a great one, the love story I always wanted.

Shaun, thank you so much for being such a great husband. I'm not exaggerating when I say that when God gave you to me, he fulfilled everything on my list. And I had a pretty good list! Thank you for putting up with me these last few weeks, especially when I was so sick. You never complained, you just did what needed to be done. I love you so much.

One Down, One to Go!

Our children presented their Christmas musical "It All Happened in the Country" last night. It was so good! Now, we just have the adult Christmas musical left. It's next Sunday morning. We're having a full run-through Wednesday night and a dress rehearsal Friday night. I'm a little nervous about it.

I also have a MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) Christmas party in the morning at 9:30 and our 20s/30s Bible study hour Christmas party is Saturday night. Then we should be through with the parties. (I think.) If I can make it through this week, I think I'm gonna be ok!

I'm so tired!

Ugh. I'm so sleepy. This has been such a long week. It's my least favorite week of the year. It's the week when we have to build the set for our Christmas musical. Last year, we were up until 3 in the morning one night working on it. Fortunately, the children's musical is first this year, so we've had more help. And we're able to use the same set for the adult musical. But it's still been 9 pm every night when Shaun gets home. And Wednesday night I stayed with him to help. Last night, we had our staff Christmas party so it was late getting home. And today, the children had rehearsal all day, so we were up there finishing up the last touches on the set and Shaun was helping to do the sound. Cayson finally fell asleep at the church at about 3 and he slept all the way home, but he woke up after we got home. Grrrr. I was hoping to catch a few zzzz's myself. And Shaun is pastoring a wedding tonight. I guess I'll sleep well tonight.

Just plain ole updates

I wanted to write tonight, but I couldn't think of anything in particular, so this is just a random update kind of post.

Cayson is over the sign language setback. I'm not even sure if I blogged about it, but a couple weeks ago or so, he just didn't want to do any of his signs, except for drink. But now he's doing them again and he's gotten pretty proficient at "hungry" just today. It's so exciting to be able to communicate with him. Plus, he's saying, or at least repeating, lots of words. Also, he's mastering the spoon!

We had a long day at church. Starting things off, our pastor is on vacation so we had a guest speaker. Shaun had to redo the bulletins because his printer messed up. I had a lot to prepare for my Sunday school lesson (I teach 1st and 2nd grade) and one of my kids came about 20 minutes early! Which means I pretty much have to stay in the room. Fortunately, my lesson book has a section for kids that come early, so I had an activity for him to do. Our accompanist had to be at work at 12 noon today, so she had to leave immediately after the singing portion of our worship time was over. She wanted me to play the invitation and the offertory, but I just didn't have time to practice so Shaun played his sax during the offering and one of our very talented guys did the invitation. We had to be back at the church by 2:30ish so Shaun could prepare for drama practice at 3:00. I'm in the drama so I have to be there too, and wrestle with my kid at the same time! (Incidentally, I'm playing Lisa who plays Elizabeth, mother of John. One of my lines is "Oh, I'm not pregnant, they just dressed me up like this for the play!" And later I say "I'm sorry to interrupt things, but I just got some great news on my voicemail...we're expecting!!!" Talk about life imitating art!) After drama, we had choir at 4 and then small groups at 5ish. We have the youth and officially ours doesn't start until 6, but since some of the girls are in choir and we finished choir at 5....they just stay and hang out until time. Finally, we got home at about 8:30 or so. Whew! I love it, but it sure gets tiring sometimes!


I forgot to mention this a while back. I posted Labor day weekend how Shaun was putting a new floor in our kitchen and we encountered problems and it took longer than expected. I realized that I never posted that it was finished. He finished it in the middle of October. It looks so good! Now if I can just get rid of the pesky wallpaper...

Speaking of our Christmas cantata...we are presenting it on Sunday morning, December 16 and Wednesday evening, December 19. If you are in the Fort Smith area, we'd love to have you! It's called "Be Not Afraid". It's a musical within a musical. I'll save the synopsis for another post. Our children's choir is presenting "It All Happened in the Country" next Sunday night at 6. I'm not sure what it's about, but it's bound to be cute!

I was in a parade yesterday. The Lavaca Christmas parade. Our church entered a float. Our theme was "There Sno' Man Like Jesus" and we had a nativity scene and snowmen all around. The kids were all the characters. It wasn't bad for our first float. I rode in the back of the truck with Shaun and the sound system. I was really impressed with Lavaca's parade, being such a small town. We were number 31 and there were several floats behind us, too. And there were plenty of people watching, too.

My mother-in-law bought me some preggie drops. They are pieces of candy that promise to help with morning sickness. And they actually do help a little. I'm not sure if it's like taking a sugar pill, or what, but it works. And they're pretty good.

I'm so ready to be in maternity clothes! I really don't like this stage where you feel like you're gaining weight, but you just look fat instead of pregnant. At least most of my pregnancy will be in spring and summer so I shouldn't have to buy too many new clothes.

I guess that's it. I hope everyone has a great week this week! Merry Christmas!

Please visit...

...my hubby's blog. It's been kinda lonely over there at Steps in a Journey, mostly because he doesn't blog much...or at all! However, he got pretty frustrated over something the other day and he decided to use his blog to rant, I mean draw attention to it. So mosey on over to Steps in a Journey, leave a comment, and encourage him to continue blogging! Thanks!

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.