Messing around

I love it that Claire is learning to play by herself. For the past several days, she's gone into her room, gotten real quiet, and then I hear her talking to herself. So I peak around the corner, and here she is - hanging out in her toy bin :) Notice her beads... she's quite attached to them! 

Cheering my soul

Today has been a hard day. As Matthew's birth gets closer and closer, this sense of impending doom seems to grow in my mind. I find myself scared to look past his actual birth and into the weeks and months to follow. As I've written before, holding reality in one hand and hope in another is hard for me. I'm young, but I feel like I've already experienced a lot of death in my life already and while I've seen God's faithfulness time and time again, I feel like I've seen it more in the comfort of His presence after loss, rather than in the sparing of that loss. Does that make sense? It's like I fully expect God to call Matthew home to Him, while getting us through it with His love and grace. In fact, I've been crying all night because of this. I know God will be faithful to get us through the storm, but I'm so scared by the fact that I can't control it.

But, and this is a big BUT, I've been reading over these verses that some wonderful women from my old church have been sending me, and I'm finding great comfort for my soul. My favorite right now is Psalm 94: 18-19 -

" When I thought, “My foot slips,”your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. 

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul."

God is being so faithful to hold us up right now and even in the midst of my fears, I find peace in giving up my fears to Him. He knows what will happen in two weeks and He is preparing us for it. I don't know why He's chosen to give us this trial, but I've seen Him give grace to others before me and I trust that He will lavish it on us when the time comes. 

A day in the life of a little girl...

This is Claire. She is a fun little girl. She has this amazing curiosity and energy (gets it from her father) that keeps me on my toes. She wakes up every morning caterwauling until I get her out of bed. When I finally peek my head in her room, she goes crazy bouncing up and down and running laps around the crib until I scoop her up. We eat breakfast, then she goes searching for something to get into! Look at those mischievous little eyes...

When she finds something to explore, she gets extremely happy! (Notice how she's wearing my headband upside down. She likes to go into our bathroom and pull out all my brushes, hair things, and other *feminine items* and scatter them through the house.) She always wants to show me what she's found, but when I get close enough to take it away, she starts running away. Smart little monkey...

She doesn't like to be kept out of the action. She wants to be wherever you are. (In this case daddy is in the bathroom trying to get some privacy from this curious little girl.)

She's very persistent, knocking on the door and yelling "Da daaaaaaa!"

Finally she notices that I'm behind her taking pictures and decides that playing with me will have to do until daddy comes out :) Playing generally consists of me sitting on the floor and her climbing in and out of my lap and bringing me all her toys and books. 

One of Claire favorite things to do is play in the water. Whether that's hanging out in the shower with daddy or splashing in the sink, or playing in the pool, she is definitely a water baby! Cole usually showers her several times a week and it is the cutest thing to watch. She gets all excited and cuddly and doesn't want to get out. When I peek around the shower curtain to take her out, she clings to him like this...

We've already gotten her in the pool once this year. Aunt Jooj is housesitting for a friend with a pool, so we took Claire over there yesterday to play. It was freezing, but she loved it! 

Aunt Jooj even dunked her! She was shocked by the cold, but didn't fuss. 

All smiles! 

And that is what life for little Claire is like. Mostly fun, some bumps and bruises, but always filled with joy. We really like this little girl and figure we'll keep her around for a long time to come... 

:)

Our little family

With only weeks until Matthew arrives, we decided to take some last pics of the three of us.

Due Date!

Right now it's 4:13 am and I am sitting here munching on cherios and blogging because I can't sleep. I woke up around 2 and after tossing and turning from side to side and listening to my husband snore and hearing my stomach growl and getting frustrated because I was having acid reflux, I finally gave up and got up. Now I feel much better, though I know I'll probably drag through tomorrow.

The good news is that at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel. A light that is fast approaching, I might add. At my OB appt yesterday I was scheduled for a c-section on April 28! I'm half excited and half apprehensive. Excited because that means only 3 more weeks of pregnancy and then I get to arrive at the hospital and poof! he'll be here! No exhausting laboring, no worries about something going wrong, and I can tell my family exactly when to arrive. Not bad for someone like me who loves to have a plan. On the other hand, having a second c-section almost completely knocks out my chances of ever having a normal birth experience, something I so badly want to do! And I know how difficult is it recovering from a cesarian. I have a horror of being cut on and this time I get to look forward to it for 3 weeks. Not fun at all!

Also, in case you were wondering, we've decided to stay at MCG for now. We've met all the surgeons and doctors that will be caring for us and we feel confident that this is the best place for now. Once Matthew's born and they have a better idea of how complex his situation is, they will help us evaluate again and see where the best possible place for care is.

So yeah, mixed feelings. But I know that God holds all of these details in his hand and I need to relax and trust that he is leading us. Every once in a while, when a doctor is explaining just how messed up Matthew's heart is, I'm tempted to throw up my hands and give in to despair. I think I'm more of a pessimist by nature and it's been hard for me to let myself hope. When I think of our little boy's future, I see a big blank and that scares me to death. Holding reality in one hand and hope in another is SUCH a difficult balance! As a Christian, I know that I serve a God of miracles who can fix this with one word, but as a worried and sinful mother, I just can't see how this story ends well.

All that to say, we would appreciate your prayers in the weeks to come! I am SO thankful for the body of Christ and your encouragement has really helped.

New Place!

Hopefully by now most of you know that we've moved across town and out into the country, into a basement apartment in Cole's parent's new house. Yep, that's right, we're officially country bumpkins and we've even got the guns and dogs to prove it! :) Nick and Dana actually did just buy a new black lab and named him Ruger (for those of you that don't know it, Ruger is a gun brand.) So now we've got three Rugers in the house: two are locked in the safe and one runs around delighting us with his puppy antics! 
We're lovin the new place and I'm lovin that I've got fun people upstairs to keep me company on days when Cole's gone! I'll post more pics later, but for now here are some of Claire and I out enjoying the beautiful, pollen-infested, spring weather. 

Our new house! Impressive huh?!

Haha, just kidding. This is the part we live in! 

The front belongs to Dana & Nick. We live in the basement :)

Claire making the trek up our longgggg driveway

Chillin in the driveway

More later!

Lazy mornings

Just a day in the life of a goofy little girl :)

Decisions, decisions....

Lately we've been feeling overwhelmed with the one big decision we get to make in regards to Matthew. Most of the things that will happen in the next few months will be out of our hands, but this first important step is entirely up to us, which leaves us feeling, well, hugely responsible for all the things that follow. The decision: WHERE TO GIVE BIRTH AND HAVE THE SURGERIES! It might not sound all that scary but we have two good options and we're busy sifting through information to help us decide. We'd appreciate your prayers! 

Beach Family

We spent last week at the beach with my family and although the weather wasn't great, we had fun playing games and catching up on college basketball! 

Claire got a haircut...

and well, let's just say that I got my money's worth :) I decided that the back of her head was looking mullet-ish, so I thought to myself, "How hard could it be? I'll just trim it up myself!" Easier said than done with a squirmy one year old. Now it looks, hmmm how shall I describe it, rather square??? Kind of like a bowl cut for a girl??? Yeah, that's about right. And I would have pictures to let you laugh at, but my husband has all of our cameras for the day. So I guess Claire gets out of this one with no lasting memories :)