"Be careful about your baby Mama"

That's what McKenna says to me all the time. If I lean over to pick something up or if I'm carrying the laundry basket downstairs or if I lean out the window of the car to get the mail from the mailbox, she's always thinking about "my baby." I love that girl!

It's a.........

Psalm 33:21
"In Him our hearts rejoice!!!"


And today is definitely a day for rejoicing in our house!


We have a healthy baby. Everything was measuring right on! Praise God!!

And we have a very happy big brother......


because........






IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!



This is going to take some getting used to.
I thought for sure it was a girl.
We don't even have a clue what we're going to name this little guy.

Christian was adorable. He walked in the room and the ultrasound tech was showing him the head and the arms and a hand and he leans over to me and says, "So does this baby have a weewee." Oh my goodness, I was about to die laughing. And so the ultrasound tech. showed him exactly what he was looking for and you should have seen the grin on his face. He's so excited. We all are. Just feeling very thankful right now for good news.

Thanks for praying for us today!

Keep waiting....

Okay, okay....I know you're all waiting on the BIG NEWS! Or maybe it's just me on pins and needles, but I thought I should just let you know that I haven't even gone to the ultrasound yet. It's not scheduled until 3pm and it will take about an hour and then I'm going to run some errands before I'll be back on the computer. Sorry, but I don't have one of those fancy phones with the internet on it.

My word I've been anxious today. I'd like to think that I'm wise enough to know that God is in control and He is the one who ordains the paths of our lives. Yet I am also no longer the naive first time mom I was 6 years ago. I know that this ultrasound today has little to do with whether or not we're having a boy or a girl. So I've been keeping myself busy cleaning bathrooms. Like really cleaning, not my usual wipe it with a clorox wipe and swiffer the floor. No, I've been scrubbing for real :) and I found myself praying about nuchal folds, heart chambers and spinal cords. I know the Lord must love how specific I'm being just like when I used to pray that McKenna's eustachian tubes would form correctly so that she wouldn't have to deal with ear infections like Christian did. She ended up with tubes in her ears. Oh well. I know God hears. I know he knows my heart and there isn't a doubt in my mind that He knows just what will be perfect for our family.

Psalm 139:1-18
"Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to You. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.

You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. O know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand."

Oh yes she did, and I let her.

I really thought McKenna would not be interested in such a ginormously huge slide. I was wrong and I was also not about to climb all of those stairs.
When I was little and needed help with something my mother would always say "that's why God gave you a sister." I'm not sure if Amy appreciated the fact that God placed her in my life to help me with my homework or zip the back of my dresses, but on Sunday when McKenna wanted to climb up that ridiculous slide I told her that that's why God gave her Auntie Mimi :)
So Auntie Mimi climbed that slide with her favorite two year old (that I know for a fact she cannot say "no" to)!

And McKenna could be heard laughing the entire way down. She took turns with Mimi, Emma and Abby and I sat in the shade the entire time. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!!

Being Intentional

We started something new in our house a week or so ago. I didn't want to blog about it until I knew that it was really going to stick and so far, so good!! You already know that for the month of December we have a special devotional time as a family every night using the Jesse Tree and the devotional that goes with it. It was such a meaningful time (especially for Christian) that the kids would look forward to each day, so we knew we needed continue something similar through-out they year. I had been thinking about what Courtney's family does each night and pretty much couldn't think of anything better, so I copied her idea. I knew that it needed to have a "special" element to it. I could just make everyone sit on the couch and read the Bible every night. Thus "the candle" began.

Our first night, we "made" our candle. That's actually the unity candle from my wedding. What on earth was I saving it for?? When I asked Ryan if he knew the significance of that particular candle he looked at me with the "am I supposed to know this...I don't want to answer because I'm going to say the wrong thing" look. At that point I knew that I was the only person in the world who cared about that candle and it seemed appropriate that it would become our first "candle." We're going to change up the candle every few months. We put heart candy in it for the month of February. We'll change it once we get closer to Easter.

Every night before bedtime we light the candle (there is something special about lighting that candle...I guess it just symbolizes that it's family time and we're not going to run off and do anything else while that candle is lit) and sit on the couch as a family. We have several different Bible story books that we're going to be reading from. Some nights we just read the story. Several times so far we've acted out the story (Ryan was John the Baptist and he baptised Christian who was pretending to be Jesus...so fun). The other night McKenna got to pretend to be Peter's mother-in-law who was sick and Jesus healed her. She loved it when she got to pretend to be sick and Christian ran and got her an ice pack because she had a fever. It's been fun for all of us. It's great to make the Bible come alive for them. Sometimes we have props that we hold to help us focus on the story.

Then after we're done our story, we sing one song (usually McKenna chooses...singing is her thing) and then we pray. Each night I give the kids directions about how we're going to pray otherwise they would just do the same prayer every night thanking Jesus for a whole list of things. Jesus taught his disciples how to pray and I think that shows us that prayer is not something we're just going to automatically know how to do. You need to learn how to do it. So we all pray and each night we pray differently. On the night we learned about Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law we all took turns praying for someone that we knew who was sick. So nights we each ask Jesus to help us with something. Some nights we ask Jesus to forgive us for something. Other nights we might thank Jesus for things or for things he has done for us. And after we pray either Christian or McKenna get to blow out the candle and we all head to the kitchen to have a bedtime snack. Then we head to bed. The routine has been perfect for our family. I don't know what it will look like after we have a new baby, but right now we are enjoying it and it's working.

My mom babysat the kids the other night and when Christian found out she was coming over the first thing he said was "Does she know how to do the candle?" We skipped the candle last night because the boys were outside trying to clear the driveway of snow and Christian asked me today if we were going to do two candles today because we missed one yesterday. I can't believe how much of an impact it's had on him so far. I'm so glad he treasures our family time and that he's learning to treasure God's word.

A rootin' tootin' good time!

Nathan's birthday is actually today ((Happy 5th Birthday precious boy!!! We love you!!)) but we celebrated on Saturday! Being the good aunt that I am, we gave Nathan a pillow pet. It's quiet and cute and soft and every kid in the world loves them. Nathan was excited.
But then the real party started! Grandmom hooked Nate up with an awesome pair of "real" cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.

And cowboy boots and a hat are very cool when you're five.....

but a cap gun makes it even better!

Now that's one cool dude! Look out folks, there's a new sheriff in town!

And lucky me, Aunt Amy didn't want to leave poor Christian out so she bought him a cap gun too! Apparently she had called ahead of time to ask Ryan if it was okay if Christian had a cap gun. Hmm...wonder why no one asked me. I'm not against boys having guns and pretending they're cowboys, but those cap guns actually smoke and come to find out...the pop sound they make is rather loud when you're in the car :) And then you have to buy new caps for them and it really is an emergency when you run out. You must immediately head to the nearest Walmart lest your cowboy have a complete meltdown. Cowboys having meltdowns are not that fun.

Oh yeah. He loved it!

Notice the pillow pet has been forgotten, although later they pretended to shoot it and ride it around like a horse. ha!

It was a great birthday for this precious guy!

Even the girls got in on the action.

Abby's birthday had been earlier in the month so she got to open a present too. We gave her this Tinker Bell that really flys. Oh my word, this is such a fun gift. If you have to buy a gift for a girl age 5-9, this would be perfect. It's unlike anything else she had and it honest to goodness really flies. Tinkerbell spent some time dive-bombing the cowboys in the living room and finally we realized the ceiling just wasn't high enough. So the next morning Tinkerbell got to fly around outside. She went so high she almost got stuck on the roof several times.

I just looked up this toy on Target and guess what...you're in luck...she's on clearance right now (I wish she had been this cheap when I bought her)!!!! Go HERE to check her out. Go ahead and get your Christmas shopping started!!!

A Little of this and that

Our big ultrasound is tomorrow and the kids are going to go for the last part of it. So we were talking about it in the car this morning. I was trying to prepare them by telling them what to expect. Christian's disappointed that they only have black and white TVs for ultrasounds because he thought the baby would look blue if it's a boy and pink if it's a girl! I thought that was hilarious. I'm glad we're talking about this ahead of time because they both have some strange ideas about how all this is going to work. Apparently McKenna thought the baby was going to "crawl" out of my belly so we could say "hi" and then it was going to go back inside.

On a different note, we have some new issues in our house. McKenna is now obsessed with make-up thanks to spending the weekend with her cousins. Emma, Abby and Sophie thought it was fun to put make-up on McKenna and McKenna was more than happy to comply. Well now I'm going to have to keep my make-up under lock and key. She's been stealing my make-up and even the chapstick from Christian's room and hiding them all over the house.

And we now have the honor of praying for Amy's dog Zoe every night. McKenna was very interested in the dog when we were there. She doesn't like to be close to dogs, but she likes to watch them. She loved being on one side of the sliding glass door while Zoe was on the other side. We've gotten to thank Jesus for Zoe many times since we've been home.

Saturday evening at our cousins house......

After Christian's soccer game we drove 3 hours to my sister, Amy's house!! Abby and Nathan both have October birthdays, so it was time to celebrate and what a wild party we had. Stay tuned....I'll finish this post later :)

Saturday Morning on the soccer field....

Saturday was quite an exciting soccer game for Christian!

Christian is #6!

Picture me standing on the sideline cheering as loud as possible while McKenna jumps up and down and yells "Go Christian Go!!!"

Our cheering must have worked: Goal #1 for Christian!!! WooHoo!!!

Look how intense he is!

Another buddy on Christian's team scoring a goal!

Christian's buddy Nicholas throwing in the ball.

Christian throwing in the ball.

And Christian scored Goal #2!!
Do you see him in the back of this picture with his fist in the air?? That's what he does every time their team scores!

Looking over at mommy, just to make sure I saw what he just did :) I love that big smile! Makes me just want to run out on the field and kiss him (but I would NEVER do that)!

And here we go again...he's got the ball... he's out in front....and....

Goal #3 for Christian!!! Once again, do you see the arms in the air?? So sorry blue team, but green was dominating on Saturday!!!

Yup! He loves it! Loves this game. Loves his team. Loves his coach. Loves having his family cheering for him. It's been a fantastic first team experience for Christian. Only one more game and the season will be over until next year.

Friday Night at my house....

I hosted a Harvest Party as a reward for some of the 4th & 5th graders from my Sunday School class. I can't show you my best pictures b/c these aren't my kids and I didn't get their parents permission to post pictures, so I'll show you some of the pictures I took from a distance! We started things off with a marshmallow war :)
Then there was an obstacle/relay race! It's always fun when it involves a plunger and a pumpkin!

Tug of War and a Pumpkin Seed spitting contest were next on the agenda.

I don't know why bobbing for apples is considered a good fall activity. If you get wet you end up freezing, so I had to actually throw a load of wet clothes in the dryer while the kids were eating.

Here's part of the crew! Ryan kept the hot dogs coming.

We had a doughnut on a string eating contest, flashlight tag and a scarecrow making contest. Then we roasted marshmallows around the fire and sang some worship songs. And Ryan ended the night with a fabulous fireworks display! It was a great night. I was exhausted, but it was completely worth it!

Baby News

I had a great doctor's appointment today for Baby Chatt!! No real news to share. We're going to wait until my big ultrasounds next week to investigate the pain I'm having in my side. The doctor did not seem concerned about it, so I'm not going to worry about it either. I heard a little heart beating 153 beats a minute. That's always a sweet sound.

So the countdown is on....only 7 days until we can officially declare that we are having a boy or a girl. I can't wait!!

Every Night

This is the scene in my backyard every single night.
What an awesome daddy...he plays ball before he even eats dinner.

And McKenna's been known to hang out with a few snacks while watching the game from her slide. The nights are starting to get darker earlier and pretty soon these precious father/son times will be over until next season.