The Past Few Weeks

In the baby news this week, I am 14 1/2 weeks into pregnancy. I have finished my first trimester! Yippy! All in all it has been a mostly uneventful first trimester. And that is something for which I am very thankful. Joshua and I went to the doctor's a few weeks ago and everything was dandy. We heard the baby's heart beat with the doppler. When the doctor was first trying to find the heart beat she found it for a second and then the baby "ran away" from her and she had to re find it! Joshua and I were joking that our baby is already being mischievous! Oh yes, the baby is the size of a peach now!

We just recently got to spend some time in Texas seeing my family. Some highlights included: Celebrating Joshua's birthday with my family.
Seeing my roommate from college, Trish. And learning from my dad how to make paper.
Meeting part of my mom's family from PA, that she just met about 2 years ago.
Going to my Grandma's assisted living center to sing good 'ol songs with the residents. Also, Joshua got to share a devotional with them!
Went maternity clothes shopping with my mom. They had a "pillow" that simulated what I will be like in three months so I could see how the clothes were going to fit!
My dog, Misty, went into hunter mode and jumped out of the bushes by the house with a fuzz ball in her mouth. It was a disgusting rat! My dad and Joshua had a get it away from Misty into the trash can before she started eating it. Gross!
We had a game time and played bingo!
I was super excited too find one of my all time favorite childhood movies, "Shipwrecked" at a used movie store.
My mom and I volunteered at a free dentist clinic that was part of her church's apartment ministry.
Joshua and I got to spend a few hours with our friends, Brandon and Cindy! We talked a lot about missions with them and it was great!
We also got to spend time with Matt, Allison, their son Joshua and Hudson, Molly and their daughter Ava.

It was a great time to spend with family and friends. We were glad to have a break from work and school too!

A Walk Down the Produce Aisle

Well this week, our baby graduates to a prune! According to "The Book" our baby is "growing by leaps and bounds". This week bones and cartilage are forming and there are indentations on the legs that are going to grow into knees and ankles. The baby's elbows are already working and tiny teeth buds are going to form in the baby's gums! The stomach is already producing digestive juices and this is the fact that you are all waiting for...the kidneys are producing urine! What a lovely thought that a large part of the amniotic fluid the baby is floating around in is urine! Ha! If we have a boy, this baby is going to start producing testosterone this week. Oh yeah, and now our baby has added a half inch to his/her length! Little baby is 1.5 inches long.

As for me the mommy, I have not had a whole lot a sickness (praise the Lord) and my main "symptom" is being tired. Naps are a wonderful addition to my day; when I can add them! It will be a while before there are any baby bump pictures posted. No baby bump yet, just a feeling of, "Hmmm, these shorts don't fit quite right anymore!"

So just for a fun little survey...who thinks we should find out the sex of our baby before he/she is born?

Our little olive

Joshua and I have been spreading the news, but I thought I would blog about it too. We are expecting to have a baby sometime around the date of February 25th 2009! As I have been reading in the pregnancy manual, What to Expect When You're Expecting I have been continually amazed at the work of creation God is doing inside the darkness of my womb. In this, my 9th week, our baby is about 1 inch long, which is about the size of a medium green olive! Apparently our baby is starting to look less like a creature out of a Men in Black movie and more like a human! Muscles are starting to form too! How amazing too, is that 3 weeks ago this little human's heart started beating-the first organ to begin functioning! My mind is boggled at the amazing knitting together that God is orchestrating.

This is a picture of our baby at 8 weeks. It's a little hard to see but the black part is fluid and the greyish part in the left hand side is the baby! It is kind of crazy to think that there are only 7 months left until we get to meet this little person outside of the womb! So in these 7 months Joshua and I are praying for this little one and for us that we would learn well how to raise this child to know and love God. We get to talk about our thoughts on disciplining this child. We get to talk about how we want to do family devotions with this child. We get to talk about my desires to be a stay at home mom. We get to figure out if Joshua should get a job, and toss around ideas of what job that should be! We get to discuss what we are going to do after he graduates next May. I get to think about and share with him the many options for childbirth, breastfeeding, cloth vs. disposable diapers. And other such questions about whether we want to find out before the baby is born if we are having a boy or a girl? What about names?! Fun and exciting things!

We are alive!

Yes, we are alive and well! I think I have started to post a couple of times, but it wasn't on my computer and I was having trouble loading pictures and I just got frustrated with it and stopped before I wasted anymore time on it! OK, so some highlights!
A few weeks ago I traveled to St. Louis to spend time with the Greever side of my family. Joshua was at this time in Central Asia on a trip with the school. I spent about 5 days with family and got to see Jeremiah graduate from high school! Joshua's mom, Irma, has home schooled all her children! This graduation was a momentous occasion for them, since Jeremiah is the last of the 5 boys to be home schooled. Joshua's youngest brother has down syndrome and is not home schooled in the sense that he will not graduate from high school and go off to college. So this past year has been the last year of homeschooling--I think she has been homeschooling for 22 years!! I know her boys are all very grateful for the work she has done in educating them! And this is not to forget their dad too, who obviously was very important in the homeschooling endeavour!

Joshua got back to the States on June 2nd. He was just in time to be back for our third anniversary of marriage! This picture was taken the Friday before our wedding. The crown I am wearing is from my bridesmaids, which I was made to wear the for part of the time we were hanging out that Friday before the wedding! Joshua and I were talking about how glad we are that we are on this side of the wedding and have been married for 3 years! Three years is not long, but we are so very grateful to the Lord for His blessing us this far!

Pretty much all we have been doing since he got back is hanging out, me working, he took a class last week, and we will now prepare for the Greever family vacation which will take place in about 2 weeks! We will be camping with most of the Greever family for about 3 weeks! We will be seeing parts of Canada, New England, NYC, and part of Pennsylvania! I am greatly looking forward to this trip and will have much posting to do after the trip!

Let's Run!

What do you get when you add 12,000 people with 26 miles? You get the marathon that happened yesterday in Louisville. You could also divide the 26 miles by 2 and get the mini marathon which many of those 12,000 people ran. I did not do any running, but Joshua completed his first marathon!! We got up at about 5:30am and drove with 2 friends from church to the starting line. Twelve thousand people is a whole lot of people! I stood with them in the midst of the runners until the mass of people started to swell forward. I waved them off and went to pick my spot on the route where I could see Joshua when he reached the 6 mile mark.

About 35-40 minutes after the start of the race the "super" runners hit the 6 mile mark. They were running SO fast!! Joshua was not part of this pack of the runners! I cheered on many runners as I waited to see him coming! He was doing great at 6 miles and I bid him farewell and left to meet him at the 10 mile mark.


In between 6 and 10 miles the race path went through Churchill Downs...Joshua ran through the infield, which is the inside part of the racetrack. In the racetrack horses were practicing! While I was waiting for Joshua to get to the 10 mile mark I grabbed a hot chocolate since it was pretty chilly. I also go to enjoy some swing music being played by a live band on the side of the raceway! So fun!

My next stop was at mile 16. I had to park about a mile away so I got to enjoy a beautiful walk in one of the neighborhoods. There were so many dogwood trees blooming. Joshua said at mile 16 that he was doing pretty well. His legs were the only thing starting to get tired. Friends from church were going to see him at mile 18 and I was going to see him next at mile 22!!

He was pretty bushed at 22 miles and was wondering why in the world he was doing this! I told him he couldn't quit now since he only had 4 miles left. He wouldn't have quit anyway but I was doing my best to encourage him on! As Joshua proceeded to run across the river to Indiana, I made my way to the finish line about 4 blocks away. It was exciting to see all the people that had finished and to anticipate seeing Joshua cross the finish line. Joshua had used the training time and the running of the race to reflect on the spiritual race the Christian is on. We press on to attain the prize! At the finish line there were people lined up cheering the runners on. There were young people and old people. There were some who glided across the finish line and there were those who limped across. There was an announcer who would say over the loudspeaker the names of the runners as they crossed the finish line.
This made me think of how there are Christians of all ages who die and enter heaven and how amazing it is to think of the names of each one of those who has been kept by God til the end. Some have battled life's hardest battles and are limping to the gates while others have seen different trials but are not limping to the goal. The race has given both Joshua and I a greater sense of anticipation for the day that we leave this earthly tent and are finally united with Christ!! Well back to the marathon! Joshua finished in 5 hours and 20 minutes. And he was really sore. I made him take some Advil when we got home and he has recovered nicely-just over night he's felt much better!

Spring Is Here

Spring in Kentucky is the most beautiful of all springs I have ever seen. I was sitting outside the other day and reading Psalm 104, which is one of my absolute favorite Psalms. Right as I was reading verse 12 a bunch of birds started singing! This verse says, "Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; They lift up their voices among the branches." I am amazed at all the things God has made! The beauty of the earth speaks so much of His creativity and His kindness. Here are some of the beautiful things that God has seen fit to surround us with.







Joshua and I were notcing how green everything seems here. Compared to Oklahoma, the grass seems like a thick bed of lushness! And I don't think I have seen so many different dogwood trees before. And then there are the trees that have tiny purple flowers on them...I don't know what they are but they are vibrant! Not only are the colors of spring fantastic, the smells are amazing! Joshua makes fun of me for saying something smells pretty. But it's so true! The grass and the flowers smell so pretty. And all of this is so astonishing to me becuase it's amazing that God would allow us to enjoy so many good things!

How We've Been

All is well here. I started back to work a couple of weeks ago and that has gone well. I'd say that my foot is about 98% back to normal. I am going to have a nursing student work with me for about the next month! I will teach her all my wisdom and knowledge about nursing!

Joshua has done well on his midterms and he only has one more paper left to write this semester. He is enjoying being challenged by Hebrew poetry(he's taking a class on Proverbs).

I am figuring out how to use coupons to get more bang for our buck. A lady a church shared with whoever was interested, about how she uses coupons to save mucho buckos. I haven't quite figured it out yet. But hopefully I will soon, because Joshua is eating a lot more because he is training for the marathon. I am excited to save the mucho buckos but I think it's going to take a bit of work to figure out how to not waste time and money!

I am super excited about this coming Tuesday...Micheal Card is going to be speaking in chapel and he is going to be speaking at two other lectures during the afternoon. He is going to talk about using the lament passages in the Bible as a way to worship God and he is also going to talk about worshiping the God who takes everything away. I'm super excited to hear what he has to say.

I think that's about it for now. I'll take an update picture of my foot sometime soon!

Snow! and A Wedding

We got lots of fun snow this past Friday. Saturday we dug ourselves out and went to a wedding in Indianapolis. We saw Joshua's old house and the site where their church was. It was a fun roadtrip in the snow and I'm so glad we got to see Joshua's family(minus Jonathan :-( ). Enjoy the snowy pictures!

Spiffy Granola

I am a big fan of granola. In fact my all time fav granola is Strawberries'n'Cream. But it is super expensive and a treat if I get to eat it! So I decided to try my hand at making granola(because you get more bang for your buck). I found a recipe on AllRecipes but I changed it around a little bit and here's the mucho good homemade granola.

Ingredients:
6 Cups whole, rolled oats
1 cup chopped alomnds(or nut you prefer)
1 cup chopped dried cherries(or fruit you prefer)
1 cup unpacked brown sugar
2-3 TBSP honey
3 TBSP butter
Dash of cinnamon(optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On the stovetop, melt the butter in a pan large enough to hold all of the oats. Add the sugar and honey once the butter is melted. Cook, stirring until the mixture is bubbly. Add all of the oats and stir until all coated. Spread the oats on a cookie sheet(might take two cookie sheets). Sprinkle cinnamon on oats. Turn off the oven and put the cookie sheets on oven racks. Close oven door. Check on mixture about 30 minutes later and turn if needed to get the granola all crunchy. Once oven has completely cooled pour oats, nuts, and dried fruit into a large ziplock bag. Shake it up to mix all the contents. Eat and enjoy!

Interview with Gretchen Wright

Go here to read an interview I got to do with Gretchen Wright. She's married to one of the facutly here at Southern and she goes to our church! I had a wonderful time doing this interview for the Pendergraph Women's Ministry here on campus!

Come Run a Marathon with Me

My adventurous husband is going to run a marathon! The Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon in on April 26th. That's 56 days from now! He's been training for a while now but isn't ready yet to run all that long way! As I have just had foot surgery I will not be running with him but I will be there to cheer him on! I'm going to find some friends who will not be running and hang out with them for the 6 hours that it might take Joshua to run...That'd be kind of interesting to do a photo montage of all the things that you can do while your husband is running a marathon!

John Angell James and Betty Freidan

This quote is from the book Female Piety by John Angell James. It is an excellent collection of his sermons that preached for the edification of all in his congregation, but most specifically women!

"It is not to the honor of religion nor to the credit of a wife and mother for a husband to come home at the dinner hour, expecting to see everything ready and in order, and to find all in confusion, nothing properly arranged, and have his time wasted by waiting for his wife, who has not finished her benevolent rambles or her morning's attendance at some females' meeting. Nor is it much for his happiness on coming home in the evening, suffering from the fatigue and vexation of the world's rough business, and when wanting the soothing influence of a wife's sweet voice, to have to sit hours in solitude and sadness becasue she is away at some public service. This is not the way to promote connubial felicity, or to interest his mind on behalf of the objects of his wife's zeal. It will never do to serve the Lord with time taken from domestic order, comfort, and family duty. A neglected husband and family are a sad comment upon some women's religious activity; and it is a comment not infrequently expressed by those who see it in the appearance of the children and the house."

And now comes the outcry from every feminist in the land saying that the qoute just promotes every kind of evil they have fought against. "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. IT was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Eash suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husbnad at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question--"Is this all?"(The Feminie Mystique, Chapter 1)

Betty Freidan rocked the United States with her book. After reading the almost 400 pages to find out what this "Feminie Mystique" is you learn that the Feminie Mystique is the bane of all American women's existance and that it comes from being locked in your home taking care of a husband, children, home. At almost the end of the book she gives you the key to spring from the proverbial trap you have been living in as a woman. "The key to the trap is, of course, education. The feminie mystique has made higher education for women seem suspect, unnecessary and even dangerous. But I think that education, and only education, has saved, and can continue to save, American women from the greater dangers of the feminie mystique."(The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 14)

I could go on. But I think I'll stop for now and just give a few comments.

Betty Friedan makes a good point. If all women are living for is matching the slip covers and taking their children to Cub Scouts, that is a pretty depressing and hopeless existance. But so is living for education and being part of mainstream society. What makes life worth living?

Life is worth living because God created it. Being in Christ is what makes life worth living. Is being a stay at home mom glamerous? No, probably not all the time. Is being a corporate executive glamerous? No, probably not all the time. But finding your satisfaction in either of those things, apart from Christ, is not good. Being a Christian means your life is not your own anymore, whether you are married, have no kids or tons of kids, or single. Living in such a way to show the gospel through what you do(whether it is as a housewife or a corporate executive) is what matters. If you are a housewife, be a housewife for the glory of God. If you are a corporate executive, be a corporate executive for the glory of God.

It is of no credit for a woman to worhip the god of domesticity. It is also of no credit for a woman to worship the god of education or society. It's sin.

Worship the One true God and do what you do for the glory of God and do it according to his plan.