Peanuts

I strongly dislike Halloween and am so glad that we are moving to a place that does not celebrate it! That being said, I do love a reason to dress up in a costume, So our SS class had a "Hallelujah" Party (jokingly called this) on Sunday evening.

I went to Goodwill, found some old clothes, and adapted them to make our costumes. Can you guess who I am?

Peanuts should give a clue that I am Lucy- and JP was Charlie Brown. Not wanting to spend $15 on a wig I would rarely wear, I made a wig out of black yarn. I have really been enjoying making things lately! I detached the sailor tie collar from the dress, added a panel to raise the neckline, and made a little white collar. JP's costume was easy- I only had to paint the black stripe.

We had fun playing "minute to win it" games, eating fun fall foods, and giving out candy and tracts to neighborhood children.

Our Temporary Nursery

We will be moving about 2 months after Silas is born, so we had to make a portable nursery. Instead of a crib, Silas will be sleeping in a co-sleeper/bassinet/pack'n play. I sewed a little skirt to go around the bottom of the sleeper so that it would match the quilt I made.

I painted thin wood letters to put on the wall. I stuck them on with velcro so that we can easily move them from place to place.
I made a 40in x 28in jungle animal quilt.
And here is the back
And then we set up a changing pad on the dresser, a light weight and compact diaper caddy, a lion hanging thing I got at a consignment sale to put sleepers, onesies... in. My mom and I painted animal faces on canvas and put them in embroidery hoops for light weight art work. I also covered a cardboard box with extra zebra fabric left over from the quilt.

It was hard for me not to be able to paint a a wall and really set up a nursery, but we will just have to wait a year and a half or so until we finally get someplace we will be staying for a while.

My Little Pumpkin

October 9th was Silas's second baby shower- hosted by my Sunday school class in Fort Worth. They did a fall pumpkin theme and it was adorable.Here are some of the guests at the shower. Along with my Sunday school class, college friends, TCU friends, and family were also in attendance.

Inside of the delicious Apple Spice Cake made by Adrian.

Picture of me at 35 weeks. Everybody comments on how small I am and how they can't believe that I only have a month to go. Hopefully that means that Silas will be on the small side.

A cute pumpkin cake was the feature dessert. This cake was made by Adrian @ pureblissconfections.blogspot.com.

They also made these really cute finger desserts that look like acorns. They are made out of donut holes, chocolate icing, toffee bits, and pretzyl twig.

I am so thankful for the ladies at both showers who put in so much time, love, and creativity to give us such fun and memorable showers. We are also thankful for the gifts we received to help us welcome Silas home. He will one well-dressed little boy. I will have to take a pictures of him in all of his outfits.

Monkey Around

September 19th- Silas had is first baby shower with the Prairie Creek and Plano crowd. A fun thing about this shower is that a lot of the people there knew me as a baby and possibly came to my baby shower. It is amazing to think that I am at the motherhood stage now.

Monkeys were the theme of the shower. It was quite cute and jungley, going along nicely with the jungle quilt I am making. I was 32 weeks in this picture with my mom and two sisters.

The Name

Before we find out the gender of our new arrival, we already had both of our names picked out. I had liked the name Silas for a long time because of his role in the NT(before a husband was in the picture) and was thankful that JP was open to the idea. We threw around some other names though because I wasn't fully convinced by the meaning of Silas. I really like names with strong meanings, and Silas means "man of the forest". This isn't a bad meaning but it seemed kind of silly. One morning while I was praying for our baby and thinking about names, Jeremiah 17:7-8 came to my mind.

"Blessed is the man who trust in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord, for he will be like a tree planted by the waters that extends its roots by the stream, and he will not fear when the heat comes but its leaves will be green and it will not grow anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit."

That sealed it for me. This verse reminded me of the forest, and this would be my prayer for my child. Thus we were set on Silas.

The middle name was a little more difficult for us to settle on. We made a list of Bible names with strong meanings and also some family names (none of which had strong meanings). I was leaning toward Charles because I wanted to honor my grandfather, JP was leaning more toward a Bible name. I decide to leave the decision up to JP- and the wonderful husband I have decided to honor my grandfather and go with Charles.

Charles means- "manly" or "free man". The verse we chose to go along with his middle name is Galatians 5:1- "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery."

So- Silas Charles it is!! I can't wait 'til he gets here.

The beginning of baby

I found out that I was pregnant on March 5th or 6th. I had been suspecting this was the case for about a week, but I didn't want to waste a pregnancy test, so I waited to take it. After attending our women's conference at church, I went home, snuck into the bathroom without JP seeing me, and took the test. It didn't take long for the two lines to appear and confirm my suspicions. I would not say that it was a surprise, but at the same time, I wasn't really expecting it or planning on it quite yet, so I honestly wasn't sure what to think I didn't know what JP would think.

I composed myself and got JP to go on a walk with me. We walked to where he proposed to me. I then told him sweet things and gave him a button that read "Future Father". His face lit up and he said "Really!!"- He thought it was great and I started crying. I must say that it took us a while to get used to the idea, but now we love it!

We waited a few weeks before we told anyone, partly because I wanted to tell family in person before anyone else knew, but mostly because I had a lot of fears about early miscarriage because we found out at 4 1/2 weeks. But God has taught me a lot about that. At every stage of pregnancy there is the possibility that something could go wrong. There is this baby growing inside of you (and aside from basic health choice) and yet you have no control over the situation and you cannot see what is going on. God teaches us from the very beginning that we have to trust God with out children- it isn't going to change when I can see him, his growth and development (physically and spiritually) is up to God, no matter how much control I may think I have. I must give Silas to God from the very beginning.

Belly Shots

I confess that I have kind of forgotten how to post pictures correctly on Blogspot, but here are a few pictures of my growing belly- though not too recent. I will try to get better at this. This is in July sometime- I don't remember how many weeks.
This was the middle of May- a little over 3 mos along.
This was at 18wks- at our gender party where we revealed that we are having a boy.
Obviously, this is the pregnancy test.

I'm Back

My last post was featured a picture of my newborn nephew who is now 3 years old. It has been a long time and a lot has changed in my life. I was really planning to just start a new blog, but I couldn't decide on a name, so this one stays for now.

Since my last post I have gotten married

Earned a Master's Degree

And we are now expecting a baby boy- Silas Charles. I will put a new post about that one.

My life seems to be constantly changing. I am trying to learn however that I need to cherish the moment I am in and not keep looking ahead to what is coming next.

So, I am going to try to be faithful to keep this blog updated- mostly regarding Silas and our life once we move overseas again.