Mommy-hood at almost 7 months.

I'm a rule follower.

I know, I know. "Women who behave rarely make history." But I kind of don't agree. I think that following the RIGHT rules - the ones God made for us - frees us to be exactly who He calls us to be, gives us confidence sometimes to break other rules when necessary, and keeps us on the best path while avoiding all those ugly bunny-trails that can so screw up our lives, our hearts, and those we love.

But that's not really my point here. My point is: being a mommy is hard for me because there are no rules for me to follow.

Well, ok, there are some. Love my girl. Teach her about God and His Word and His faithfulness. Remember that God alone makes her dwell in safety. (We sing Steve Green's rendering of Psalm 4:8 as Megan's lullaby every night.)

But, lets be honest, the day-to-day of these things are really left up to us. And, while she's still an infant and not understanding language, its even more obvious (than it will be when she's older) that teaching Megan about God and His faithfulness does not merely (or at all right now) mean talking to her about God and His acts throughout history and in our lives.

At one of my baby showers, the women pounded into my head that I need to rely on my instincts as a mom. (Ok, it didn't feel as bullying as that, but they were definitely pretty encouragingly insistent.) And when Megan was a newborn, those instincts seemed pretty strong (most of the time). But the thing about instincts is you can't point the finger somewhere else and say, "This solid, firm, always right thing says to do it this way so, even if you don't agree, that's how I'm doing it." Its all on you. And your "instincts". Which could easily be mistaken for whims, feelings, or sleep-deprivation induced ravings.

In our family, Jamie is the naturally instinctive one. I'm all reason, rationality, and argument. Jamie is the one who's likely to say in a conversation that he just doesn't feel right about something, or that he feels like God is saying something to him. And, because he's been proven right over and over again in his "feelings", I tend to listen and trust him in those instincts. I, however, will ALWAYS try to reason things out, see the other side, and make sure I can argue that my way is the right way. I drive Jamie crazy with my devil's advocate stance on every conversation topic and decision.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the decision making of being a mom is not an easy thing for me. I want rules. "When Megan wakes up at 4 am for the 5th time that night, here's what you do. Period." Ha. And even reading parenting books doesn't really help. The Bible doesn't weigh in on Baby-wise vs. Attachment Parenting. Oh how I wish it would. :)

Most of the time I'm really pretty good at the physical demands of parenting a baby. Yes, I get grouchy and zombie like with sleep deprivation, but I don't mind it too much. Yeah, my knees hurt every time I get up or down with her in my arms, but I can get over it..until I think I'm doing it WRONG.

That's when I start to freak out.

Because there are no rules by which to measure my parenting. And no ten steps to ensure that Megan will grow up secure, loving the Lord, and healthy.

And maybe that's why its important that we sing to her every night:

"I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." (Ps. 4:8)

Because only God's hands are big enough to hold Megan's future. No matter what it may hold.

Beautiful Megan at 8 weeks and younger

When I talked to my friend Adriel for the first time after Megan was born she asked me what were the little things that I loved about her. Here are some of them:

- She has this

super cute curly cowlick on her forehead. Since she's lost most of the downy hair that covered her when she was born, you can't see it very well right now, but if she gets hair there when she's older its gonna be super annoying to her. I think its super cute and really hope she does get hair there just so I can see it. :) (You can kind of see it to the left of the hair that is hanging down over her forehead in this picture.)

- When she was born her ears seriously looked like they were on upside-down. So cute. They were wider at the bottom and narrower at the top. They're starting to be more even now, but I loved that my girl had upside-down ears for a little while.

- I think every newborn does it, but she totally snores...only it sounds like a purr. Its so sweet to have her on your chest and hear her purring her contentment. She also sometimes sings with every breath. I love it.

- When she was born, her big toe nails were pointy and I was kind of worried that she would get ingrown toenails. But they grew and the points broke off. But it was such a cute little thing that showed that she wasn't quite "cooked" when she was born.

- When she finishes eating and you pick her up to burp her, she arches her back with her legs curled up (her little butt sticks out in a very cute way) and purses her lips. (It reminds me of that Full House episode where Michelle gets in trouble for calling that boy "duckface". Except Duckface looked weird and was annoying and Megan is super cute.)

- When she's asleep her little mouth is locked shut. Its impossible to get her to eat unless she wants to!

- She's just started smiling in the last couple weeks and more frequently more recently. Yesterday I discovered that she LOVES when I whistle for her. I start whistling "twinkle, twinkle little star" or "Jesus loves me" and she just lights up.

- There're so many sweet things when she eats. But especially when she was just a week or so old she would just get so panicky, rooting around for food, that it could be right in her mouth and she'd be frantically shaking her head back and forth with her mouth wide open. Gah. The cutest (and most pitiful) thing ever. Now she sometimes does it when she's trying to get her pacifier and its just plain cute. (Not pitiful because she's getting plenty to eat and she knows very well how to get it!)

Six weeks ago today...and the next couple days

Warning: This will be long because I want to document this for myself as well as give you info. And you might not want to know all the info. :)

It was a Tuesday morning and Jamie and I had spent Monday night at the new house working on the nursery until late. I had finally got some of Megan's clothes washed, folded, and put into her dresser drawers. The crib wasn't built yet, but the bassinet was up and ready. And I had taken several pictures of my swollen ankles, knowing that I needed to rest and that I would need to put my feet up at work the next day.

So, Tuesday, I put my feet up on an upside down trash can and got to training my replacement, Brandie. But I was feeling pretty exhausted and, I guess, just weird. I had one of the hygienists take my blood pressure...just in case because of the ankle swelling. But I knew that I had just worked a bit too hard and that I just needed to rest. I started to feel some cramps...but again, I knew I just needed to rest. I knew it wasn't contractions because, well, there wasn't any interval between them. It was constant. But the cramps were getting worse and we weren't busy at work, so I asked (and they encouraged me) to go home and take a nap around 11 am(?). I told them I was pretty sure I would be back soon after lunch, but I thought this would be a good short amount of time to leave Brandie to get the hang of some of the tasks without me watching over her shoulder.

So, I drove home and called Jamie to let him know what I was doing. But when I got home the cramps were just getting worse. But still no intervals, so obviously no labor. So I called my Mom and Jamie again and they both encouraged me to call the doctor just in case. (By that time the cramps were making me tear up and I was starting to worry that I was too wussy to do the whole natural childbirth thing if I was having such a hard time just dealing with a little bit of cramps.) The doctor said to go to the hospital just to have them check to see if I was having contractions, so Jamie drove home to get me. We brought a hastily - and half-heartedly - packed bag with us, knowing that this was not labor, these were not contractions, but...just in case.

Jamie drove me to the hospital as quickly as he could, singing to me to try to distract me from his fast driving, short-cuts through parking lots, etc. When we finally got to labor and delivery they had no rooms available so we stood at the counter filling out paper work until I couldn't stand any longer from the pain, so Jamie grabbed me a wheel chair. When the paper work was all filled out we walked over to another area (maybe the PACU?) that was being used as overflow. Just a room with about 5 beds separated by curtains. Arg. Getting that hospital gown on seemed to take forever! All I wanted to do was lay down.

Finally, I laid down and the nurse put monitors on me, asked a bunch of questions, and after monitoring me for a little while said I had no contractions (isn't that what I'd been saying?) but a little bit of irritability in my uterus (what?) and that the baby's heart rate was good. She suggested that I go home and wait, since this was probably just pre-labor and I'd be more comfortable there. It was about that time that I thought I felt my water break...until the nurse checked and it was blood, not "water". Starting then, everything sped up.

The nurse called our doctor who was there very quickly, checked me, and declared that she needed to do a c-section. Jamie asked "when?", to which she replied, "now." He asked if he could be there (no) and if they ever made any exceptions (no). I think my primary thought at this point was feeling so bad for Jamie.

They called some kind of a code that caused nurses to stream in to start getting me prepped for surgery. At some point in there, I threw up all over myself. Lovely. (I guess shock from blood loss?) They tried to get an IV in each of my hands, then gave up and ended up putting one in the vein on the inside of my elbow. Then the anesthesiologist was there asking me what I'd eaten today (but remember? I threw it all up) and what medications I was on and all of a sudden my bed (and I on it) was being run down the hospital halls. So cool! Just like on TV!! Right before we went through the OR doors, Jamie ran up and gave me a kiss and told me he loved me. Then we were in the OR and the anesthesiologist was yelling for some kind of medicine he wanted me to swallow before I got the general anesthesia to keep me from throwing up. He finally got it, I swallowed it (nasty), and they started prepping my belly.

Next thing I knew, I was groggily seeing a baby.

Jamie had brought her to see me. I really only remember hair and lips and incredible softness. After that, the day is blurry but pleasant. I was on morphine and I remember they told me to push the pain button whenever I felt pain. But then when they came back they were shocked at how much I had pressed the button, so they gave me something stronger. I guess I was in pain, but I don't remember it. Megan was in the nursery and at one point they came and told us that they were going to take her to the NICU because she was having some minor breathing problems. Jamie asked if they could bring her to me so I could see her before she was stuck in the NICU. They did that and I got to hold her a little bit.

Then they took her to the NICU. Eventually they moved me from the PACU (where I had been taken back to) to a Post-partum room.

Ha ha. I have so many memories of that day of just being so content (hello, morphine!). They told me they would move me to a more comfortable bed and I said that the bed I was on was super comfortable. They they moved me to the other one and I was amazed at how much more comfortable it was. They told me they would take the plastic sheet out from underneath me. I wasn't bothered by it at all. But then they took it out from underneath me and wow! It felt good!

Throughout this whole experience, but especially that first week or so, Jamie and I were so aware of God's provision and care for us throughout. In so many ways.

1) Just the fact that I was at the hospital when my water broke/I started bleeding so profusely. Placenta abruption is serious and could have been very dangerous if I had been somewhere else when it all happened. As it was, there was no harm to either Megan or me other than surgery for me and the consequences of being a few weeks early for her. Her apgar scores were 9 and 7!

I could easily not have called the doctor, the doctor could have told me to wait at home, or we could have left the hospital before the bleeding started. Jamie could have taken his time at coming to get me (neither of us thought the cramping was ANYTHING), but instead he rushed home from work and drove like a crazy man to the hospital even though he *knew* this was just a false alarm. Thank you Lord for putting urgency in his actions, even if not in his mind!

2) The nurse we had was amazing. And her name was Sarah Lee. In my morphine induced state, I thought that was super cool and told her about my sister-in-law who has the same name, although different spelling. :-P

3) The post-partum room that we got was amazing. One of the biggest in the whole unit! There was plenty of room for my bed, a couch for Jamie, and lots of visitors!

4) We were at Virginia Hospital Center. When we were first picking an ob, we thought we'd be living in Arlington/Falls Church, so we got a recommendation for a doctor who practiced there. We had heard it was a great place to deliver. But we didn't even consider the NICU or anything like that. Our baby would have no trouble at all, right? When we finally moved to the other end of Fairfax and super close to Fairfax Hospital, it was just a bit inconvenient to be delivering in Arlington. But what a blessing to find out that VA Hospital Center is the only hospital in the area with private NICU rooms! A private place to learn to breastfeed, have friends and family visit the baby, and sleep on that last night when I had been discharged but Megan hadn't! On top of that, the unit only has like 12 babies on it, so the nurses had plenty of time to spend with us during those late night feedings, helping me figure it out, talking to us, and encouraging us.

5) The particular NICU room that we got: all the way at the end of the hallway so that we had maximum privacy. No one ever peeked in our room to get a look at the baby. The nurses let us have more visitors than we were supposed to because no one would see. It was great!

So, back to the story. Once I was settled in my room on Tuesday night, Jamie went out and went back to our apartment to begin moving everything over to the house. He knew that we would need to go home from the hospital to the house, not the apartment. He was gone until probably around 3. Then he went to see Megan, and finally came and crashed on the couch in my room around 4 am. On Wednesday morning we woke up to some guy knocking on the door at 5:30 am and coming in to ask me all kinds of questions like whether the birth was vaginal or a c-section, whether I had an epidural, etc. Eventually I asked why he couldn't just look at my chart. He told me that it was his first day. Ha. At 6 he came back asking if he could take the dressing off my incision. I was like, "um, my doctor hasn't even done that yet. no." I"m thinking, "its your first day, you haven't even read my chart enough to know what kind of birth I had, and now you want to start messing with the incision that you didn't even know happened? NO WAY!" Finally at 6:30 the resident came in and took the dressing off, took my catheter out (much to my disappointment - I was enjoying being able to drink water without having to constantly pee - oh morphine), and took me off the morphine. Soon afterwards, a nurse came in and helped me get up and walk to the bathroom. Ugh. It was awful. I was so dizzy. And then she told me I should sit in a chair rather than getting back in bed, so she put me in a chair and left. Jamie was down in the NICU with Megan at that point and I didn't know what to do. I was so dizzy and sick feeling that I was sure I would faint if I just moved my head, let alone tried to get to the bed to lie down again. Eventually my doctor came in to check on me. She must have been able to see how miserable I was, so she helped me into bed and then told me that they were going to have to do 2 blood transfusions because I had lost more blood than normal during the c-section. (Hence, the dizziness!) I just remember asking her to call Jamie and explain it to him because I knew I was too dizzy and out of it to understand what she was telling me. The rest of the day I spent in bed trying to at least eat the liquid diet tray the kitchen brought me (yum.

Beef or chicken broth was the only thing that tasted good to me.) They came in to teach me to pump. (It had already been 24 hours since Megan was born - she needed sustenance.) And finally at 3 or 4 they started the first blood transfusion. Ugh. I know it was such a long day for Jamie. Back and forth between my room and Megan's room. Waiting for the blood transfusion to get started because I couldn't leave the room to go see Megan until it was over. (I was so sick for most of the day that I didn't even mind that I couldn't see Megan. :-( Thankfully Patti came and sat with her for like 6 hours on Tuesday so she wasn't alone the whole day while I was sick.)

During that first blood transfusion my Mom got here from California. She came to see me and then went to meet Megan for the first time.

Finally, after the first transfusion and before the second, the nurse let Jamie wheel me down in a wheelchair to see Megan. Finally, I got to hold her and try to feed her. I was feeling about a million times better by this point.

Then it was back up the elevator for the second transfusion. After that one, we went straight back down to Megan and thus began our trips down to the NICU every three hours for the rest of my stay. Ah. The empty halls of a hospital at night. Jamie practically running with my wheelchair because he was so impatient to get back to our beautiful baby girl.

For the rest of my time in the hospital, Mom and Jamie pretty much traded off. Jamie would stay with me and Megan through the day and then leave in the late evening to go spend several hours getting things moved from the apartment to the new house. He'd get back between 1 and 3 in the morning, sleep on the couch in my room, then get up every 3 hours to wheel me down to see Megan. Mom would spend the night at the new house, spend all day either at the apartment or the house, packing, unpacking, cleaning, and organizing, and then come hang out with me and Megan for the evening while Jamie was gone.

The blood transfusions did wonders for my strength. I felt better immediately. But then there was Megan to worry about. The doctor in the NICU was concerned that she wasn't getting enough food. She had been on an IV for a while, but she needed to be fully feeding and gaining weight from nursing before she could leave. And the doctor was not nice about it.

Jamie and I were determined to give Megan only breastmilk, knowing that its best for babys' tummies if they have only breastmilk at least for the first couple months of life. The doctor was not happy about it. Jamie had to be super firm about it when she first went into the NICU. Then the doctor yelled at me about being 10 minutes late for a feeding (I didn't know the 3 hour thing was such a strict thing until that moment!) And of course, the ever difficult task of helping a baby figure out how to nurse along with waiting for my milk to come in. At one point the doctor said that we had to be able to supplement Megan's nursing with a 1 oz bottle of either breast milk or formula at each feeding. No pressure, Mom! But, thankfully, my milk started coming in just in time and we always had just enough from pumping for the next feeding.

God was so faithful in all of it. The timing of my milk coming in was perfect. I was also so thankful for the wonderful ladies that He put around me. Of course, Jamie was there and I don't know what I would have done without him to fight my battles for me, call the doctor funny names behind her back, and encourage me. But in that moment, the women made a huge difference. My mom was there fiercely angry at the doctor for upsetting me. And encouraging me. And then Sarah, Matt's wife, came. She had picked up some supplies for me and, along with the supplies, brought a Mrs. Field's cookie illegally into the NICU. Ah. The comfort of her nursely reassurance that I was doing the right thing along with the delicious sugary comfort of a chocolate chip cookie covered in frosting.

My "baby blues" were banished (for the moment)!

Plus, there were all the nurses. Jami, who warned me that it could take my milk longer to come in because I had a c-section, lost a lot of blood, and didn't get to nurse immediately. Her and all the other nurses who taught me how to breastfeed as I sat there trying every three hours. One of the nurses who stood behind the doctor as she strongly pressured me to supplement with formula and made sympathetic faces that helped me stay strong and realize that the doctor might be exaggerating the necessity of formula supplementation. (In fact, as I'm reading reviews on VA Hospital Center, I'm seeing that they are somewhat known for pushing formula supplementation on everyone - even people whose milk came in within 24 hours of birth!)

I was discharged on Saturday, 4 days after coming in "just to be checked." Jamie and I rushed "home" to our new house where I got to see how homey my mom and Patti (Jamie's mom) had made it feel. I took a shower, ate some homemade cookies, and then we rushed back out the door to make it to Megan's next feeding. That night we slept in the NICU. (Thank God for the wonderful nurses who had kept bringing us more and more comfy chairs. By that night we had one super comfy sitting chair, plus two of the chairs that pulled out into "beds". Ha. Not very comfortable, but at least we could both lie down.) Jamie brought his church clothes with him so he just had to change in the morning and head over to church to lead worship. (At that point it was less stressful for him just to go and do it than to find a sub and prep them.) That night we had a male nurse. At first I was nervous because, hey, I'm breastfeeding and I'm kind of a modest kind of person. But he was great. He would come in before every feeding time, change Megan's diaper, get her and her supplemental bottle all ready, and then just hand her to me in the chair and leave. It made a huge difference! And I was thankful that he was the nurse on that last night, not the first, as by that point I pretty much understood the basics of nursing and didn't need the nurse's help. (God's provision again!)

Oh, that night Megan was also on a billiblanket because her billirubin (jaundice levels) were a bit high and they wanted to make sure they were going down not up so that we could go home the next day.

Finally, on Sunday morning, we got the ok for Megan to leave.

Our nurse came and unhooked her from all her wires (praise the LORD!!!) and we just had to wait for Jamie to come and get us.

We came home to our new house and slept in our bed for the first time with Megan next to us in her bassinet.

So many things to be thankful for. We felt God's provision at every turn. Every time I would start to worry about something, we would pray (and others would too) and all of a sudden it would be fixed.

It was the same when we got home from the hospital.

Megan wouldn't nurse because she was so used to the bottle. We prayed and took away the bottle and she started to figure it out.

She wasn't gaining any weight. We prayed and went to a lactation specialist. We decided to go back to supplementing with a bottle of breastmilk(thinking that we'd just have to give up on nursing until she was bigger). From then on she took both the breast and the bottle with no problem...and gained almost 2 oz a day.

I am so thankful for all of your prayers and for God's amazing answers to them...and for His provision of blessings we didn't even know to ask for and far beyond what we need.

God's good provision

Some of you know that this has been kind of an uncertain time for Jamie and me. We have always agreed that when the time came for having kids, we wanted me to be able to stay home to care for them. But we've also always known that that would be difficult financially in this area. On two salaries, we are able to live pretty comfortably, but one salary really seems almost impossible. It was a step of faith for us when it was the right time to start having kids because we still had no idea how we would make it. We really had to come to terms with the fact that we might have to move to a place with more affordable housing - but that would mean a new job for Jamie, new roots to put down, etc. And really Jamie's job is pretty ideal for him at this time.

We were continuing to explore different options, praying for God's provision and guidance, praying for openness to whatever God had for us, cutting costs and looking at ways to cut costs even more once I wouldn't be working.

Its been a good (and humbling) process for us, but some of the options we had were starting to fall through and a couple Sundays ago we really prayed, "Lord, make the way clear. It doesn't look like you're going to provide the way we thought, so please just show us what you DO want." (Its not like that was the first time we prayed that prayer, but it was another time of surrender.)

Then, Monday, July 6th, Jamie got an email from John Yates. (We were both home from work because it was the day our jobs chose to give off for July 4th.) The email included a forward from a family in the church who had a home available that they were willing to rent for an extremely reasonable rent. (Actually, its pretty UNreasonable for them. Definitely below what they could get.) In fact, as Jamie and I had discussed it in the past, this was the sum he had named several times as the sum we would probably be able to afford monthly in order for us to survive on his salary alone. So, we wrote back and went to go see the house that Tuesday evening.

Its beautiful. 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, lots of living space, etc. It would cut at least 20 minutes of Jamie's commute and allow us to be closer to the community of The Falls Church. The upstairs is all newly redone hardwood floors, everything is brand new paint, and the bathrooms, kitchen, and appliances, while very old fashioned, are scrubbed immaculately clean. The neighborhood is quiet and well-established. We met the across-the-street neighbor the other day - she's a Christian and has 2 small children - and just the short conversation we had with her showed me how friendly and neighbor-ly the neighborhood is.

Of course, that Wednesday night I had a lovely pregnant breakdown thinking about all the work involved in moving and how overwhelmed I felt in going from an amazing but small 2 bedroom apartment to a large house that will need to be somewhat furnished, made to seem home-y, etc. Ha ha. Jamie wisely assured me that he will do all the work and my pregnant self will just have to tell him where and what to clean. And then he put me to bed early. And since then I've felt incredibly peaceful and relieved. And also very surreal and blessed. And maybe a little guilty that God has provided such abundance for us.

But I'm also aware that God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others. And, hey, this house will definitely give us space to have even more house-guests. (If they want to stay when we have a baby up at all hours of the night!) And the living space is huge enough that we will definitely no longer have to announce that we have a maximum capacity of 7 when we invite people over!

We've been scouring craigslist for furniture to help furnish this amazing home. Already, we found a dining room table for a great price that will seat up to 12 (maybe could squish more) if we put both leaves in it. I'm so excited for hosting family dinners and having the neighbors over and even having worship team dinners at OUR place! ...Now to find chairs to go with that table!

:)

We definitely see the hand of God everywhere in this. We're so thankful for His truly undeserved kindness in gracing us with such an amazing home - and with the beginnings of furniture to fill it. Our prayer now is that we will be faithful in generosity with the gifts He has given us and that He will be served in our home.

And some lovely pictures from our phones.

Front. Makes Jamie think of the Wonder Years every time he sees it!

Living room. I love how sunny the living spaces are!

Our official move-in date is October 1st, but the family we're renting it from is very kind and is allowing us to start moving some things in starting today (or, actually yesterday). Hopefully this way, the actual moving in (2 days before my brother's wedding and 13 days before Baby Girl Brown is due to show herself) will not be too traumatic! Ha.

God is good!!!

Its July Already?

How does a whole other month go by with no update? Sorry to anyone who keeps checking this thing. I'm thinking that's probably no one by now! And its not like there's nothing going on in our lives to update about.

First, Baby Girl Brown. She's doing well. I'm 26 weeks (just over 6 months) along and really feeling pretty good. A little back ache when I sit or stand or lay on one side too long. But not too bad. Oh, and heart burn. But that's about it. Definitely maternity clothes only from this point on. No more squeezing into my biggest pre-pregnancy clothes with just a belly-band to help me out. Ha ha. I'm loving the same black pants for work every day. It sure makes things easy. :)

This past Monday I had my glucose test. That's kind of the big one for our pregnancy, I think, because gestation diabetes is the one complication I'm at highest risk for because of family history, etc. But I'm excited to be at this place where we can find out if we need to do anything about it and act on it if we do. So far, no word, but I think that means everything is ok, since they told me they would get a hold of me by the end of the week if there was a problem.

As far as I can tell, our girl is very healthy. She has been super active. Yesterday I really don't think she went more than half an hour the entire time I was awake without kicking and squirming and somersaulting. Today she was a bit more subdued. But I think its because I didn't snack between breakfast and lunch and she was HUNGRY!

Other things that I think are fun? She loves to kick my seatbelt and the computer. She can actually make the computer move! And, I'm not sure if its just been a coincidence, but there have been several times when she's been pretty quiet but when Jamie started talking to my belly, she started squirming and kicking again. I hope its because she recognizes his voice already! He loves her so much.

Work is still good...although a little more difficult. I think one of the main things I've noticed in pregnancy is that I am more easily annoyed. It used to take a lot to even make me feel annoyance. Now, I feel it all the time at work! I'm really working on not giving in to it, but trying to maintain a "not easily angered" loving attitude toward everyone. After all, if things don't annoy you, its no virtue not to react, right? There have been a couple times when I've really been convicted to act with patience and pray for peace. (Jamie's encouragement over g-chat helps a lot with this!)

It does seem like we've been pretty busy recently. I think we've had guests sleeping in our guest room almost every other weekend for a couple months now. And the weekends we (or more like I) have off, we spend recovering! But it is a blessing to have this place where we have room for people to stay. We were just discussing yesterday how it really makes a place feel like home when you can have people you love come stay with you. We want to be hospitable.

Speaking of busyness, I need to go clean....busy weekends mean that the house has not been thoroughly cleaned in several weeks. I think it might be time to clean that scuff of something off the kitchen floor. :)

Email to my Mom

Well, we haven't updated this in forever, but you gotta start (over) somewhere, right, so here's an email I wrote to my mom just now about some fun recipes I've used in the last couple days.

Hi Mom,

I just finished dinner and thought I'd email you with the recipe for what I just made, since it was absolutely delicious!

Last night I was looking at all the fresh chicken you bought that I had thawed and realizing that I REALLY needed to use it before it went bad. So I made two separate chicken recipes that I'd never made before. (I know...its like the first time in my pregnancy that I've actually felt adventurous in cooking!!!)

Both recipes were breaded, so here's a simple way to make yummy bread crumbs. Just take a couple slices of whole wheat bread, toast them thoroughly (mine were browner than I would normally eat and even a teensy bit burned in places), put them in the food processer and blend. (I couldn't find my chopping attachment, so I used the shredding attachment and fed half slices down the chute thing that i normally put the cheese down.) - Sheesh baby girl is kicking the computer. - Then I mixed them with a seasoning that Jamie's mom always buys and that I really like on buttered pasta or in some italian dishes or whatever. Its called Mixed Up Salt. You should be able to find it in the weird salt section. I probably used maybe 3 tablespoons of the mixed up salt to 4 slices of bread. But not sure, since I just sprinkled it in.

First recipe (for what we ate last night). 

Ingredients: thawed chicken breasts, block of cream cheese, chives or green onions, parmesan cheese, breadcrumb mixture, melted butter. 

Directions: Take a chicken breast, and butterfly it. (You could pound it to make it thinner but I didn't have a pounder thingy, so I didn't.) Then put a slice of cream cheese (I used half a block of cream cheese divided between 4 small breasts) and some chopped chives or green onions on the chicken and roll it up, securing it with a toothpick or two. The cream cheese doesn't need to be totally covered by the chicken. Roll the rolled up chicken in the bread crumbs, then put it in a greased casserole dish or something to bake it in. Do that with all the chicken. Sprinkle the tops of the chicken things with parmesan cheese. Drizzle it all in melted butter. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes. And be sure to eat the goop. This is the first meat that isn't cut up very small that I've had any desire to eat in a very long time. But I had seconds of this last night!

Second recipe (for chicken nuggets).

Ingredients: chicken, butter, breadcrumb mixture.

Directions: Cut up the chicken into maybe 2 inch cubes. Eh, the size is approximate. Dip the chicken in melted butter (or just dump a handful in the melted butter like me). Coat each nugget with bread crumbs. Put in a single layer on a foil-covered cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. When they're baked you can also freeze them and rebake them at 350 for 10 minutes when you want to use them. That's what I did for dinner tonight. Yum!

Well, just thought you might like some (relatively) low carb recipes to add to your repertoire. I especially love the chicken nuggets cuz they're super easy, all ingredients that I normally have around, and they're freezable!

Hope you're having a great time at Dad's party! And that Dad is very surprised! :)

Love, Catherine

Autumn's "Best" Weekend

We spent the weekend in Canaan Valley, WV for TFC's fall retreat. It was gorgeous weather, beautiful surroundings, and crazy busy with set up and take down in two different venues. Not quite such a retreat, but still nice to be there for their peak color day...and to drive back home and realize that we're nowhere near our peak color day so hopefully we'll get to experience it twice this year! :)

West Virginia is definitely a different culture from northern Virginia.

Anyway, here are some representative pictures from our weekend.

Wow. Once you get off 66 there is barely anything. This was the gas station where we stopped. There were people eating breakfast in the gas station. :) Yum.

I don't know if you can see it, but the restroom key was a picture of a man with "women" written under it. Further investigation revealed that the woman's skirt was colored in.

   It was a really pretty drive.

  

The surroundings were really pretty!

This is Jenny. She and I are in small group together. And yes, this is AFTER the summer. Kind of scary to think about how pale I'll be AFTER winter.

Ah yih. Its amazing how exciting it can be to drive a golf cart. Ha ha.

Finding out that the guitarist for the Saturday service back at home forgot to show up.

I watched the 3K race with Brian and Doug. :-)

Jamie passed the young girl just in time to win 3rd place in his division. I was proud! :)

And there's Florence, Doug's daughter and our friend!

One of zillions of pictures of them setting up or tearing down or something with all the equipment.

My husband the rockstar. After the evening's entertainment, the guys in the band stuck around to jam. It was super fun.

M Bizzle.

Steven Law. John Yates called him Liberace on steroids. Ha ha.

    

Dancing. :)

    Bill on electric, Jim on bass

 

This is such a classic Bill look, I think. :)

Jamie and Mike sharing keyboard space.

  Later, some relaxation in the lobby.

On Sunday morning we had probably 10 minutes practice time, total. So, we sat down to talk through who would sing what.

   FLORENCE! :)

      And then began tear down. This doesn't look so bad, right?

Not too bad.

OK. This is why I spend my time coiling mic cables.

This is Sophia. She belongs to our friend Aaron and Amy.

This is Olivia, her older sister. It was such a nice diversion to hang out with their family for a few minutes before we all left.

This is Joshua, the youngest of Amy and Aaron's gorgeous children. Isn't he snuggly?

    

This is Aaron and Amy. They have one other boy - Caleb, who comes between Olivia and Sophia. He's the dancing boy if you scroll up a bit.

Don't you love the protective big sister-ly arm around the younger sister?

Can you say gorgeous? Then I asked her to smile...

Ha ha.

I asked Olivia which Disney Princess she wanted to be. She said Jasmine. I can actually kind of see a likeness here...just pretend Jasmine got super pretty blond hair. :)

  

so, then we drove home. We stopped at this restaurant...which was VERY, um, rustic. But they hadn't even taken anyone's order (the restaurant was full) after about 20 mins, so we left because we were HUNGRY and figured we could be driving while we waited and then eat at approximately the same time, just further down the road.

So, we stopped at a Pizza Hut and ate. And then we drove home. Yay!

The end.