What's a Turnip?

I had to google it.  Our baby is supposed to be about the size of a turnip.  All I knew about turnips were that they were some type of vegetable I didn't like, so need not bother wasting time on them.  Thus, I had to google a turnip to visualize our baby. :)

Another book said our baby was about the size of my outstretched hand, crown to rump.  That's a little easier to see.  So, little baby, you have already filled our hearts, and now you are big enough to fill our hand! (but don't try it yet, we don't really want you in our hands for several more weeks, ok?)

We are growing!

 

This is our little one at 7 weeks!  It's been such a joy so far, knowing that there is a little life growing inside of me.  I have been so fortunate to not have many negative side affects.  In fact, I would say the only side affects I'm dealing with are fairly good ones.  

I get tired often = I get to rest often 

I get hungry often = I get to eat often

I get a round tummy = I get to wear cute maternity clothes

I won't really go into the fact that I look more chubby than pregnant right now.  But I know it will soon pass and people won't be wondering if I ate too many doughnuts.

 The baby is now 15 weeks, and about 4 or 5 inches.  The size of an apple or avocado.

Since I am bad at posting, here is a quick recap of the recent weeks in pictures!

 

Week 8, probably the last time I will show my bare stomach for a long, long time :)  I had to document evidence so that someday my children will believe that I actually had abs. 

 Here we are at 11 weeks, starting to show!

 14 Weeks

15 Weeks

Peanut likes her little sibling, as you can tell.  :)  Truthfully though, she has acted a little more protective and attentive to me lately.  She wasn't always a big cuddler, would prefer to lay on the couch next to you, instead of in your lap, type of thing.  Lately though, as soon as I sit or lay down on the couch, she is right there next to me, or on me.  It's funny :)

Happy Birthday Peanut!

When  you adopt a shelter dog, there are certain things you will never know.  Background, age and BIRTHDAY are a few.  So, we decided to pick a day around when we adopted her and call that her birthday.  In order to help our memory, we chose Veterans Day. 11/11/11 was her first birthday with us! Here are some silly pictures from our silly celebration.  Sometimes I look at these and just laugh at how ridiculous I am :)  Oh well, you only live once.  Why not have fun being silly. :)

 Since cake isn't good for dogs, she got chicken.

She wasn't sure what to do about the candle, but she knew she wanted that chicken!

She was not a fan of the homemade party hat.  Pretty sure she wouldn't have liked a store bought one either though. 

For those of you who are die hard Chick-Fil-A fans (as are we) do not fret.  I did not waste one of my precious 8 pieces on my sweet canine.  We had been to Chick-Fil-A twice that day, and I wanted to save room for a shake.  So, 15 pieces for me (divided between lunch and dinner, of course) and 1 for my pup is a fare shake, I think.  After all, she is a pretty good dog :)

Love the FALL!

OK,
So, I wrote this post around November... haha.  Well, better late than never!

We have had some lovely fall weather around here, so I wanted to celebrate it before winter arrived :)  Here are some pictures of campus, lovely trees and our little family.  Enjoy!

The pond on campus.

 Arnold T. Olson Chapel

 Spontaneous family portrait

 Happy Fall Flowers!

 Have I mentioned how much I love candy corn and sugar cookies? :)

Creativity is not my gift, hence following the straight lines that are already in a pumpkin.

Mike's says "pumpkin" in Hebrew. Guess that's what happens when you study it all the time.

 Our house at the shelter.

Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but there are dog treats and candy corn floating around inside her skeleton rib cage :)

Cultivating a Healthy Marriage -

Mike and I listened to this lecture after dinner (a few dinners to be exact - we paused it a few times) and really enjoyed it.  It is full of practical suggestions and techniques to help grow your marriage.  Though cheesy, the analogy of a garden really makes a lot of sense in marriage.  You have to work on it, every day, or it will most definitely have weeds and pests in it.  In a drought, you have to water the garden.  In overwhelming amounts of rain, you have to diligently weed the garden.  Where as in marriage, when life is hard, it's hard on your marriage.  When life is "easy", you still have to work on your marriage.  Tim & Kathy explain it better, but I really enjoyed it.
Another of my favorite points that they made was in regards to debriefing.  They emphasized the importance of debriefing arguments after the fact.  When the air is clear and the nerves have calmed, talking about the fight and where it came from and how we can better communicate next time to keep conversations as that, and not fights.

Did I mention that we also laughed a lot? They make a good team.

From the Redeemer Presbyterian Website:

Using the metaphor of cultivating a garden, Timothy and Kathy Keller address methods of cultivating healthy marriages by exploring eight practical areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love language, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, and spiritual life together.

Listen Here

Quick note: The audio tracker moves very slowly, making it seem like the recording is hours and hours long.  In reality, about halfway through, the audio restarts back to the beginning, so you have to fast-forward until you catch back up to where you were.  Not the best technical job ever, but the message is worth it.

She's Communicating!

Absolutely my favorite video of Sophie. I can't stop laughing! :-D

Family Reunion in Indiana

Happy Birthday Grandma! Thanks for letting us all celebrate it with you!
We all had lots of fun!Sydney and Sophie are getting so big!

Go Pack Go!

Here is a picture from the Packer game! I am working on uploading the rest and will put them up soon. It turns out that free internet does have a cost, speed. Our connection here is fairly slow, especially when it comes to photos and videos. It is supposed to get even worse, now that the undergraduates are here and sharing the same network. Yay!

I'm a slacker...

If I admit it, you can't judge me for it :) Here is a quick recap of the last month.We got a new foster, named Hatzi. She likes to cuddle, so I like her.
Emily and Jared came to visit! They were in the states for Christmas vacation. Sydney is getting so big! All of the girls, except Sophie. I think she was sleeping :)

Wish List - National Tree

8. See the national Christmas tree and all of the state trees
Happy Christmas Eve! Mike and I went downtown to check out the scenes around D.C. and it was bitterly cold! It was worth it though, something unique about our city. We kinda skipped some of the state trees... but we also saw the capitol tree from Montana! DC is actually a fun place to be at night time, when there isn't the stress of traffic and tons of people.











These are both pictures of the Capitol tree, and below are pictures of the National tree on the ellipse.













We also got a glimpse of the White House, but weren't able to get right up to the fence for a good picture.

Smiles all around

We are back from Massachusetts! It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. I have included a few pictures below to give you a quick overview. There were dogs, kiddos, sister-in-laws and a cute little baby. Here they all are!

Nieces...

We are blessed with beautiful nieces... we have five in all, and here are pictures of each of them!

My sister Sarah's two girls, Sydney and Sophie.

Here is Sydney, growing into her new role as big sister.



And Sophie, on her first shopping trip with the girls!












My sister-in-law Crissy, has Brianna, Brittney and the newest addition, Braelyn.

Beginning with the oldest. Brianna at the swimming pool.









Here is Brittney, in her tent.











And baby Braelyn.












We love them all so much and are very excited to watch them grow!

Pictures!

Here is beautiful baby Sophie!
She is healthy and well mannered, thank goodness!








Sydney is still adjusting, she's not sure she likes sharing all of the attention. But she is being a good big sister, nonetheless.








I got to hold her :) I love being an auntie!

Baby Sophie

My sister Sarah has had her baby!  She was induced this morning and 5 hours later, Sophie arrived!  She weighs 9 pounds even and is about 20 inches long.  She is healthy and so is mom.  I will post pictures as soon as possible.